$950,000 From the School Next Door: A Lutheran Church Sells to the District and Leases Back

• Berkley Schools in Michigan bought Cana Lutheran Church at 2119 Catalpa Drive, next to Berkley High School, for $950,000.
• The purchase, funded from sinking fund dollars, closed on April 30, 2024.
• The building will house the district’s Adult Transition Program and its robotics team.
• The congregation can lease the building until December 2025.

A Michigan congregation has sold its church to the high school next door. C&G Newspapers reported that Berkley Schools has bought Cana Lutheran Church for district programmes.

The church at 2119 Catalpa Drive sits beside Berkley High School. The district paid $950,000 from its sinking fund, and the sale closed on April 30, 2024. The building will house the district’s Adult Transition Program, which serves people aged 18 to 26 with disabilities and had been operating from the CASA building in Oak Park, and the high school robotics team, Da Bears Team 247. The district aimed to move in by August 2025, and the congregation can lease the building until December 2025.

Superintendent Scott Francis said: “We were looking for new spaces within the district boundaries for the Adult Transition Program and for robotics.” He called the purchase a “win-win for the teams, for the campus.”

Chris Golembiewski, president of the Cana council, said: “The vast majority of our congregation…have come to the realization that this was a good partnership.” On the church’s future, he said: “Our hope is that we would be looking at a church…to either join or nest within the Berkley community.”

Neighbours are often the most natural buyers for church property, and a school next door is an especially good fit: the building is already suited to groups, classes and events. Jamaican churches with land or buildings beside schools, clinics or community facilities might find their best buyer, or tenant, next door. A leaseback period, as Cana negotiated, gives a congregation time to plan its next step. For schools and public bodies short of space, buying a nearby church can be a practical alternative to building new.

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