Spiritual and Intellectual - First Baptist Church works to turn offices into education, arts center

Credit: Journal photo by Lauren Carroll

The old unemployment offices on Sixth Street will first become home to the Winston-Salem Street School.

By: Mary Giunca | JOURNAL REPORTER
Published: September 18, 2009

For several years, First Baptist Church on Fifth Street had eyed the old offices of the N.C. Employment Security Commission on West Sixth Street for its 80 parking spaces.

But when the church bought the property at 630 W. Sixth St., in the summer of 2007, and members began talking about its future use, a new vision for the squat 17,000-square-foot building began to take shape.

"We have a lot of educators here," Pastor David Hughes said. "There's always been a real strong bent in that direction."

After much discussion and prayer, church members decided to establish a nonprofit organization to convert the building into the Winston-Salem Center for Education and the Arts, with the Winston-Salem Street School as its first tenant.

The church is awaiting approval of its application for nonprofit status, Hughes said.

Then it can pursue grants for the renovation of the building. It will cost about $500,000 to get the part of the building used for the school ready.

The Winston-Salem Street School serves students between the ages of 14 to 19 years. Many of the students have been sent to the school from the court system or other schools. Some students are teenage mothers; some are from neighborhoods where crime, alcohol and drug use are high.

The school opened in 2004 and is faith based.

The move will allow the school to double its capacity, to 60 students, said David Morgan, the school's director.

The new site is close to the downtown bus station, Morgan said, and closer to cultural opportunities downtown than the current site on Cameron Avenue.

"One of the pieces of the program is to give students alternative activities to just hanging out, to show them there's another world out there," he said.

Hughes said that the church has tried to remain open to possibilities for the rest of the building.

"The mission of the whole thing," he said, "is that this would contribute to the spiritual and intellectual development of people in the Winston-Salem area. "

mgiunca@wsjournal.com 727-4089