Bible Baptist Church secures new property

MANATEE COUNTY — The minds of the Rev. Mark Campbell and his wife, April, already are spinning with new ideas.

Bible Baptist Church, where Mark Campbell serves as senior pastor, last week signed a five-year-lease with Manatee County for the John H. Marble Recreation Complex at the corner of State Road 70 East and 37th Street East. The 15,000-square-foot building, at 3675 53rd Ave. E., is better known as the old South County YMCA.

The church officials officially get access to the building, which includes a gymnasium, several classrooms and an office, on Aug. 24.

“We feel it’s going to be such a benefit to the entire community,” Mark Campbell said. “We’re excited that multiple ages can be reached with this building — children and adults.”

Campbell said Bible Baptist plans to move some of its programs, such as an addictions program called Reformers Unanimous, to the campus and also to develop recreational programming, such as basketball and volleyball, there.

Bible Baptist also hopes to offer special activities for teenagers and for the roughly 200 children it buses to the church each Sunday for services. Additionally, it plans to hold English classes for individuals in the community who are not native speakers and need assistance learning the language.

“It gets us close into town,” Campbell said of the location, which is about five minutes from the church. “We hope to put a food bank there to help people, too.”

The county had planned to demolish the building after the Manatee County YMCA officials said the building needed more than $1 million in repairs. Bible Baptist member and former Manatee County Commissioner Jonathan Bruce heard about the situation and approached county officials, Campbell said. Soon, church officials toured the property.

“We just stepped in and said if they didn’t (demolish it), we’d keep it as a community center,” Campbell said.

After several organizations expressed interest in the property, the county distributed a request for proposal for John H. Marble Park — with options to rent it in its entirety or portions of it — to 41 agencies in mid-May. Of those, only Bible Baptist came forward with a proposal. Negotiations began in July, after the church’s proposal was approved.

Under the agreement, Bible Baptist will assume responsibility for maintaining the old YMCA building only and cut the grass, saving the county $13,000 over five years on landscaping costs. Manatee County will continue to operate the John Marble Park’s other amenities — a swimming pool, outdoor basketball court, tennis courts, a picnic pavilion, children’s playground, restrooms, a bocce ball court and a radio-controlled vehicle racing track.

Contact Pam Eubanks at [email protected].

VACANCY
Manatee County YMCA officials moved out of the building in fall 2010, citing the repairs and the building’s small size as reasons for the move. At the time, it already had moved much of its programming to other locations. Manatee County had invested about $300,000 in improving the park from 2008 to 2010.