A Christian church with locations in Louisa County, Pantops Mountain, and Waynesboro has purchased a key site in downtown Charlottesville for a new campus.
Point Church paid $1.3 million for 105 Ridge St., a structure originally built in the late 19th century for the Mount Zion Baptist Church. The property had previously been listed at $1.875 million.
“This is an amazing building, and just think of all the life changes that have happened here,” said executive director Chip Measells in a video on the church’s website. “You can’t get any more [central] than where we are.”
After the Mount Zion congregation moved to a new location on Lankford Avenue in 2003, the building became the home of the Music Resource Center in 2004. Previously, the center offered educational opportunities to teens in a practice space above Trax, a famed nightclub that was demolished soon after the University of Virginia purchased it for hospital expansion.
Point Church was founded in 2009 and is listed as being a Southern Baptist congregation. Their website states they expect to have the old church ready for worship services in April 2025. The purchase was a strategic one.
“We want to be at the center of everything that’s happening around our communities that are in poverty, that are struggling with financial hardships, and to do that we need to map the assets and collaborate and coordinate with all the other great work that’s being done,” Measells said.
One nearby opportunity for collaboration is the Salvation Army at 207 Ridge St. City Council recently granted permission for an expansion project that will allow an increase from 55 shelter beds to 114 beds. That includes seven two-bedroom suites for transitional housing, allowing families to stay together.
Measells said Point Church has an entrepreneurship academy that lasts 10 weeks and is followed up with Gospel-led mentorship.
“We are praying that God is going to make an extraordinary impact through this Gospel-centered path out of poverty,” said Pastor Gabe Turner in the video. “We are praying that the poverty level will decrease.”
The Point Church will continue to lease the basement space to the Music Resource Center. They also have a map indicating several satellite locations for parishioners to park. The few spaces close to the church are reserved for drivers with handicap tags.
Next door, Cushman & Wakefield | Thalhimer is marketing the former Greyhound bus station as a “rare development opportunity” that could take advantage of the new Commercial Mixed Use Corridor zoning. An encampment of unhoused individuals is currently living at the site.
Elsewhere in Charlottesville, plans to develop a portion of the Hinton Avenue Methodist Church in Belmont with affordable apartments fell through when the Church of the Good Shepherd paid $1.5 million for the property. That purchase allowed the congregation to move out of the space they were renting at 105 Ridge St. from the Music Resource Center.