Shared Space / Adaptive Reuse
Congregations often feel that they have to choose between spending funds on their mission or on capital investments to preserve their buildings. Partners helps sacred places and their communities explore space-sharing and adaptive reuse strategies that both increase the congregation’s ministry and generate new sources of revenue for building maintenance and preservation.
Reinvigorate Your Sacred Space with new Partners
Every congregation’s property holds immense value for mission, community, and potential new uses including community partnerships and space sharing arrangements that may yield new streams of income.
Shared Space Planning
Partners brings significant and diverse experiences of space-matching to congregations who are interested in developing or enhancing space-sharing strategies. Partners offers customized recommendations and guidance on wide range of topics such as:
- Pursuit of space-Sharing partnerships and rental arrangements that fit well with the congregation’s mission and identity
- Identification of underutilized spaces that are best suited to space-sharing relationships, and effectively repurposing and readying spaces for rental
- Guidance regarding marketing and messaging, including hands-on help with getting the word out to local community groups, small businesses, and potential one-time renters that the church has space available
Because of Partners’ strong relationship with the faith community and our expertise in community development and the arts, Partners has extensive experience and connections to networks of arts groups and social service organizations interested in sharing space. In facilitating shared-space agreements, our services include:
- Identification of potential tenants
- Guidance on best practices for sharing space
- Business and strategic planning
- Lease development and negotiation
Adaptive Reuse
Partners has strong expertise on how to reuse inactive religious properties, with extensive experience in developing and leading charrettes and seminars on how to redevelop such spaces. In situations of complete adaptive re-use, our services include:
- Design charrette development and management: a kick-starter initiative that brings together community leaders, residents, and architects to think creatively about the site through the lens of civic engagement
- Community and political engagement
- Business and funding plan development
Organ: The Community Instrument
How Artists Work With People, Not For People By Jonathan Eifert The organ is, by its large nature, an instrument of the community. Led by Partners for Sacred Places, a new initiative titled PLAYING AND PRESERVING: Saving and Activating Philadelphia’s Historic Pipe Organs In Advancement of Music and [...]
Arts in Sacred Places in Austin
In 2014 with support from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Partners for Sacred Places began an 18 month research study into the space needs of artists and space availability of sacred places within three geographically diverse cities: Austin, Baltimore, and Detroit. The results of that survey [...]
Creating Spaces: Performing Artists in Sacred Spaces (Austin, Baltimore & Detroit)
Project Background The Three City Arts Study builds upon Partners’ successful Making Homes for the Arts in Sacred Places (AiSP) program. AiSP was designed to facilitate long-term, mutually beneficial space-sharing relationships between arts organizations – with inadequate or no home – and houses of [...]
Philadelphia arts groups find homes with local congregations
Arts groups need their space, and many older churches have plenty to spare. In a win-win for everyone, a Philadelphia nonprofit is pairing up theater, dance, music, and other arts groups with congregations that have underused space. No one was laughing when Our Lady of Mount Carmel Catholic School [...]