“Pawleys Island Community Church is bursting at the seams and recently unveiled a $6.75 million expansion plan.
“Our church is very grateful it’s growing and we’ve added a lot of new people in the last year-and-a-half,” the Rev. Don Williams, the church pastor, said. “We just really have run out of space.”
Planning for the expansion project, which is called “Make Room,” started about three years ago.”
Read More Here: Coastal Observer: Growing Family of Worshippers Drives $6.7m Expansion
“The first part of the project will include expanding the foyer of the church’s worship center. Williams said people jokingly call the narrow foyer a “cattle shoot,” because it gets crowded quickly when people are leaving the first service at the same time people are arriving for the second service.
The project will widen the area near the doors by a few feet.
The expansion of the foyer could start as soon as September and includes the addition of a coffee bar.
“We just want to have some space for people to hang out,” Williams said. “It’s going to be a nice place for people to be able to gather and build a community.”
The church does not plan to close the worship center during construction, although there could be some “inconvenience,” as people are asked to use an alternate entrance, Williams said.
The project will continue with construction of a 6,100-square-foot pavilion in the field next to the building that houses the church’s offices. The structure will include a cement floor and garage doors the end facing the field near the chapel.
“It’s going to be very cool,” Williams said. “It will have an indoor/outdoor kind of a feeling.”
“Work on the new building is scheduled to start in January.
The project also includes a 5,350-square-foot expansion of the annex, which is attached to the worship center. The new space will include a family worship room for parents of young children, a large nursery, meeting rooms, and a command center for the church’s life safety team with direct access to the balcony of the worship center.
The final phase will extend the back wall of the worship center to allow more room for storage, production equipment and meetings.
“Right now it’s not very pleasant, and there’s not much room,” Williams said.
Once the phase is complete the church’s two production booths, which are currently located in front of the stage, will be consolidated and moved behind the stage. Moving the booths will allow for approximately 50 more chairs to be added.
Work on the expansion project is expected to take about 18 months.“
Read More Here: Coastal Observer: Growing Family of Worshippers Drives $6.7m Expansion