Lakewood Church Takes Over Compaq Center
HOUSTON
www.churchcentral.com
Lakewood Church leaders signed a 30-year lease with the city and will spend $75 million to renovate the Compaq Center to be used as its worship complex. To commemorate the deal, Houston Mayor Lee Brown presented the Rev. Joel Osteen with a symbolic key to the city-owned facility Dec. 5, the Houston Chronicle reported.
The church will break ground Dec. 13 and 14, but continue weekly worship at the church's present location until the beginning of 2005. About 25,000 people currently attend weekend services at the church, but Osteen said he expects that number to grow.
"If everybody who told us they were going to come when we get the Compaq Center comes, we'll have this place filled a bunch of times," Osteen said.
Osteen promised dramatic changes for the landmark arena, built in 1975. "It will not look like this except for the seating,"Osteen said. "We are going to put a new face on this place."
The main part of the arena, which most recently was home to the Houston Rockets and other professional sports franchises, will become a 16,000-seat worship center with new sound, light and video systems. A stage will be built near the loading dock on the building's west side and a choir loft for 250 will rise from behind the stage.
The newspaper reported that sky boxes will become offices and locker rooms will become nursery rooms. The church will add a wedding chapel, conference rooms, a bookstore and a food court. Plans call for constructing a five-story building to house programs for children, teens and adults, and a broadcast production center.
In September, the newspaper reported, the church launched a three-year stewardship campaign to pay for the move. Thus far, church members pledged about $33 million, and more than $7 million of that has been deposited in the bank. The annual operating budget for Lakewood and its worldwide television ministry is more than $30 million, church administrator Kevin Comes said.
The church already paid rent on the arena for the first 30 years and has an option for an additional 30 years. The upfront payment was $11.8 million.
