Lakewood Ranch church hopes to shine in Corporate Park

The Rev. Chip Bennett sees the southeast corner of Lakewood Ranch Boulevard and Professional Parkway East as a beacon for hope and fellowship.

There, his congregation, Grace Community Church, is building a new 43,000-square-foot church. It is the first church building in the Lakewood Ranch Corporate Park.

Bennett is excited about the implications.

“Long past my lifetime, there will be a church smack dab in the corporate park shining a light,” Bennett said. “That’s so Jesus.”

The church itself — named the 19th fastest growing church in the country by Outreach magazine in a 2018 annual report on the growing

churches in the U.S. — spends more than $10,000 a month on community outreach, including such efforts as providing a children’s area at Lakewood Ranch’s monthly Music on Main events, passing out water bottles at races and hosting 7,000 people at Main Street for the Christmas on Main event it organizes.

Grace officials have been planning the new campus for three years because the existing 12,000-square-foot campus at 6932 Professional Parkway E., Lakewood Ranch, is simply too crowded.

“We did everything we could to be cost effective — blew out walls, got extra seats,” Bennett said.

For the new facility, concrete walls, which were poured on-site, were erected the last week of January. When the building opens in August, the sanctuary will seat between 850 and 1,000 people, and there will be a spacious lobby-type area for socializing and a separate area for children,

offices and meeting rooms.

Bennett said the design for the sanctuary is more like “acoustic in the round,” so everything feels and sounds closer. The stadium-style seating was selected to make the space more intimate. The lobby area will have plenty of areas for attendees to gather and socialize before or after services.

Bennett said Grace leadership understands people want the benefits of a large church, including quality children’s programming, but they also want it to feel small. The new space is designed with that concept in mind.

Total costs for the project are $11 million, including land, construction and equipment. About $7.5 million is specifically for construction.

Grace Community Church currently has six services across two campuses — at 5 and 6:15 p.m. Saturdays and 10 a.m. and 11:45 a.m. Sundays at Lakewood Ranch and at 9 and 11 a.m. Sundays at its other church at 8000 Bee Ridge Road, Sarasota.