Waldrep restarts plan to build $5 million office complex for ministry staff

Nov. 27—Phil Waldrep Ministries' plan to build a $5 million office complex on Danville Road Southwest is moving forward after a three-year delay, and the project will allow the organization to relocate from its cramped historic building downtown.

Crews resumed clearing a 34.37-acre site at 2916 Danville Road S.W. earlier this month to create a site for the Christian ministry's more than 19,000-square-foot office. A prayer garden is also in the plans. The site is between the Under Par driving range and the Church at Stone River.

The city's Planning Commission approved consolidating two parcels between Danville Road and Oak Lea subdivision last week. The site plan for the project has been approved by the city, and a contractor is moving forward with the construction, the Rev. Phil Waldrep said Wednesday.

Waldrep and his wife, Debbie, are the co-founders and president of the evangelism organization. They and their staff began planning for the new building in 2019 because their East Moulton Street office had become overcrowded, but then the COVID-19 precautions hit the following March.

The pandemic kept Waldrep Ministries from its primary purpose of conducting large religious conferences like Gridiron Men, Women of Joy and Celebrators, Waldrep said.

"Everybody in the hospitality industries put travel on hold," Waldrep said. "This forced us to restructure and we decided to wait on the new offices."

But life now seems to be getting back to normal, and Waldrep called it the "perfect time" to move forward with the new office complex. He said space is tight for employees in the current office.

"Many of them are sitting side by side downstairs," Waldrep said.

The nonprofit has 18 employees when it's full-staffed. Waldrep said he expects to add more, and the new office will have room to accommodate them.

A highlight of the new building will be a theological research library that Waldrep said will be open to local ministers of any denomination and anyone who wants to conduct research. He said he expect college students in religious studies or seminary will want to use it.

"There's not a religious research library in north Alabama," Waldrep said. "I know a lot of books and information shifted online, but there's nothing like having the information on paper in front of you."

Waldrep, a West Morgan High School graduate, has amassed a large collection of religious books and materials since beginning his Decatur-based ministry in 1980.

"A book just sitting on a shelf is a waste because it needs to be read," he said.

An acre of the property will be devoted to a prayer garden, which Waldrep said is designed after the Guido Gardens in Metter, Georgia. He also plans to incorporate some ideas he got from Billy Graham's Training Center at the Cove in Ashville, North Carolina.

"It will be a quiet place where people who are struggling with life, like maybe they're going through a disease like cancer," Waldrep said.

Pugh Wright McAnally did the engineering for the complex and 5R Designs did the architectural drawings. Dunlap Construction, of Huntsville, will build the office complex,

Ministries Production Director Bruce Young said Wednesday that land clearing is almost done so he expects Dunlap will begin construction on the office building in the next month or so.

"It will probably take 14 to 18 months, depending on weather and whether the contractor can obtain materials," Young said.

Waldrep said he plans to sell his East Moulton Street office after the new facility is complete. He's not sure when the downtown Decatur office was built. There are accounts that it was built in either the late 1800s or about 1902, he said.

— bayne.hughes@decaturdaily.com or 256-340-2432. Twitter @DD_BayneHughes.