NORFOLK — An abandoned church in Park Place could be renovated into affordable senior housing — the second ongoing project in the neighborhood seeking to convert a former house of worship into apartments.
A developer, The Hanson Company, is seeking to breathe new life into the closed Park Place Baptist Church at the corner of West 31st Street and Colonial Avenue with help from the Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority.
NRHA Board of Commissioners approved the partnership at a March meeting. The plans are still in their early stages, but Tarvaris McCoy, executive vice president of The Hanson Company, said he expects the project will include an investment of more than $12 million. The firm intends to open 40 to 70 affordable senior units and a potential senior community services center at the church site, depending on the planning, zoning and design process, he said.
“We respect that many of these churches were jewels to their communities in both their architecture and their actions,” McCoy wrote in an email. “We saw an opportunity to preserve and restore one of those jewels within a community to which we are truly committed.”
The development would give a chance for elderly residents in the area who want to downsize a chance to do so but remain in their neighborhood, according to McCoy.
More and more seniors are in need of an affordable place to live, and affordable housing designed for seniors will be a critical part of the housing landscape going into the future, said Steve Morales, chief development officer with the NRHA.
“Straight up, you have an aging population, and as you can imagine, a big portion of that are folks that don’t have a lot of income,” Morales said.
The Hanson Company’s goal is to save historically significant structures while redeveloping them and it uses various tax credits and other loans to do that. The tax incentives the NRHA is able to help the developers get will be key to accomplishing the project and ensuring that the units remain accessible to those below thresholds of the area’s median income, according to Morales. Under the agreement, NRHA would help garner funding for the project and would also have a 30% stake in the development, according to NRHA documents.
Norfolk’s affordable housing supply continues to dwindle with the city’s most dire shortage of rental units for those making less than $35,000, which is about 3 in 10 city households, according to the city’s most recent housing study. The city lacks about 6,800 units for such households, and for families making less than $20,000 a year, it’s short another 4,600 units.
Talks about renovating the property in residential apartments go back at least half a decade and discussions for a senior center date back even further to about two decades, according to previous reports. The Hanson Company owns the site, which is held by an affiliate, Park Place Dev LLC, which purchased the property in 2021. The church property is less than 1 acre and valued at $615,000, according to Norfolk city property records.
“While this is a national phenomenon, we heard this loud and clear from the Park Place community, which has recently been desiring additional housing options for seniors,” McCoy said.
There is no timeline for the project yet, though McCoy said one should be ready in the next couple weeks.
“In the planning process there will be many surveys and inspections to ensure appropriate environmental, structural and architectural consideration,” he said. “It can be difficult to retrofit historic church spaces into residential spaces. However, among the benefits are the preservation of a historic structure which has been an institution in the community for a very long time.”
Morales said the partnership represents a great opportunity to save the building.
“We in the past have been part of the Park Place conservation/redevelopment efforts and definitely want to continue to see the community do well, and certainly it’s also an opportunity for our seniors in the city to have another option,” he said.
Just two blocks north of Park Place Baptist Church on Colonial Avenue, work continues on the renovations at the former Park Place United Methodist church, which is also being turned into apartments, according to city documents and a city spokesperson. Richmond-based company Monument received a special use permit from the City Council in 2022 for a 60-unit multifamily, six townhome project.
The historic church was once home to the largest Methodist congregation in Virginia, according to previous Pilot reporting. A representative of Monument could not be reached for an update on the project.
Another renovation of a former synagogue into housing also received support from City Council in March — giving Beck Associates the greenlight to transform the former Beth Messiah Synagogue of Tidewater at 7130 Granby St. into almost a dozen residential units and some commercial office space.
Ian Munro, 757-447-4097
