ORLANDO -- The members of the First United Methodist Church of Orlando have been extremely patient.

But they are tired of putting the future of their congregation and its mission on hold while the Orlando Performing Arts Center Corp. struggles to make a case for as much as $250 million in public and private funding to make an arts center a reality.

The church Ministries & Education Building and a parking lot sit on the preferred site for a proposed downtown performing arts center. And for the past five years, the people behind the arts center had talked about constructing a new 55,000-square-foot building and parking lot for the church in return for the use of that land.

But now, after waiting half a decade for some action, the church congregation has voted to start a $5 million renovation next month that includes the Ministries & Education Building.

"They voted to go forward with their project because they have a need and don't feel the Orlando Performing Arts Center is real enough to go in a different direction," said Chuck Watters, vice president of Houston-based Hines International, the development partner of the arts center, at the nonprofit group's Dec. 1 board meeting.

"We have asked them to postpone their plans," said Watters, adding that Hines plans to focus on finding "compelling alternatives to put in front of the church."
Moving forward

However, the church is done waiting at this time. "We're moving forward," says Joe Nisbett, a member of the church building committee.

Nisbett knows the arts center master plan envisions using the entire block on which the church's aging Ministries & Education Building is located, but isn't sure exactly how the church's decision to renovate it now will impact the arts center's plans.

"To what extent (the renovations are) compatible or incompatible with the Orlando Performing Arts Center depends on what the arts center ends up doing," he says. "At the very least, our moving forward with the renovations probably makes it more expensive for that piece of it for them."

But that doesn't mean the two organizations can't reach an accord sometime down the road. The church remains open to scenarios that advance the church's long-term plans, says Nisbett.

Still, the arts group knows it needs to make a decision as soon as possible so the church won't end up spending a lot of money on the renovations, says Orlando Performing Arts Center Executive Director Kathy Ramsberger. "We need to do our due diligence," she says. "They've done theirs and have held off on their project for a long time."

But she expects the two groups ultimately to work things out in the future. "The dialogue and the will is there," says Ramsberger.