Marrying Church Land With Affordable and Senior Housing

Goelzer: “Perhaps there’s opportunity to transform these paved lots and put up a ‘paradise’—with housing and services vital to a community and its residents.”

GARDEN GROVE, CA—Wesley Village represents a creative use of underutilized land into a multi-use, multigenerational urban campus of quality affordable housing with educational, social and health services available to residents and the larger community, Jamboree Housing Corp.’s VP of marketing and communications Mary Jo Goelzer tells GlobeSt.com. The firm, in a unique partnership with the City of Garden Grove and the Garden Grove United Methodist Church, recently completed construction on the property, an innovative, adaptive reuse of church property.

Through the partnership, Jamboree entered into a 60-year ground lease with the church, repurposing 2.2 acres of excess parking space and unused vacant land that will provide ongoing financial support for the church’s charitable activities. The redesigned 130-year-old church campus includes the addition of two three-story residential buildings for working families and seniors, with a community center that permanently houses these community partners: Alzheimer’s Orange County, Boys & Girls Club of Garden Gove, Lestonnac Free Clinic, and Project Hope Alliance. A third building is dedicated for the exclusive use by Orange County Head Start as a learning center. These community partners will provide adult day care, behavioral health services and after-school activities, plus a range of other social, education and health services available to Wesley Village residents and the surrounding community.