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Church Closer To New Home

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By KENNETH KNIGHT

The Tampa Tribune

Published: July 16, 2008

TEMPLE CREST - The congregation of Temple Heights Baptist Church, a community landmark for 50 years, is moving closer to finding a new, permanent home.

"We are close to buying something and getting re-established," church deacon Charles Kinsey said last week.

Clark Allen, the church pastor, said the congregation is considering buying a 2.2-acre site at 40th and Yukon streets or a 4.8-acre parcel on Puritan Road overlooking the Hillsborough River to put down roots and establish a multicultural ministry.

The church left its longtime home in Temple Crest last year when it sold its property on North 46th Street to the Hillsborough County School District. Since then, church services have been spread among three locations, and church leaders have been working with a real estate agent to find suitable locations.

Allen said church leaders are seeking a site that would give the church the best potential to grow and expand. "We are looking to the future," he said.

Allen described the Puritan Road property, which includes a house he estimated at about 5,000 square feet, as "a beautiful piece of land."

"We have gone to the Hillsborough County planning board, and they told us we could meet there hold services in the house temporarily," he said.

The congregation would then decide, Allen said, whether to renovate the house to serve as a full-time church or tear it down and build a structure.

The property at 40th and Yukon streets - The Word of Life Foursquare Church - is more accessible because a church building is already there, Allen added.

"We have contracts on both properties," Kinsey said, adding that a decision is expected by mid-August.

Until church members have their own place of worship, they will continue Sunday morning services at the Embassy Suites hotel on the University of South Florida campus. The church uses meeting space at the Temple Crest Civic Association clubhouse and First Baptist Church of Temple Terrace on Sunday and Wednesday nights, respectively.

Allen and other church leaders have said the plan has always been to find a new church in the Temple Crest area, where most of its members live.

Allen, who also speaks Spanish, said he envisions a future for Temple Heights Baptist Church that embraces bilingual sermons and multicultural fellowship. He leads Spanish language services at First Baptist Church of Temple Terrace on Sunday afternoons and evenings.

Allen said attendance at Sunday services has reached 190 members and guests on occasion since the move.
Temple Heights Baptist Church and Christian School were symbols of faith and community pride for the thousands who attended church and school - kindergarten through 12th grade - at 8406 N. 46th St. for nearly four decades.

The church was established in 1957 a few blocks away at the Temple Crest Civic Association clubhouse at 4242 Miller Ave.

The church moved to 46th Street in 1969. Within three years, it had earned a spot among the 100 largest churches in the nation and boasted of having the largest Sunday school attendance in Hillsborough County.

Major classroom additions allowed the school to enroll 1,400 students by 1972. The school's highly touted athletics program offered sports such as football, baseball, basketball and swimming.

After years of declining attendance and with the church and school increasingly in disrepair, the 7.5-acre site was sold last year to the school district. Both buildings were demolished in December to make way for the new Sylvia Rodriguez Kimball Elementary School, which opens in August to help ease overcrowding at other area schools.

The church also sold a 9-acre ball field on East Regnas Avenue to a developer who expressed interest in building a subdivision. However, nothing has been built on the site.

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Reporter Kenneth Knight can be reached at (813) 865-4842 or kknight@tampatrib.com.

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