Officials of Summit Community Church, Great Falls Construction, the Gorham Planning Board, and the Sebago Technics architectural firm have been continuing to discuss Summit’s plan to build a large, new community church building near the intersection of Cressey Road and Narragansett Street (Route 202), which would be situated across Cressey Road from the Masonic Temple. These discussions have included a presentation at the April 14 Planning Board meeting.
Recently the church and the construction company announced they have scaled back the size of the project somewhat. The footprint of the planned building has been reduced from 28,000 square feet to 22,750 square feet, the size of the parking lot has also been reduced, with spaces planned for 127 vehicles instead of 400 vehicles. The church is still planning to construct a mixed-use community church building, including space for a dual-purpose sanctuary/gymnasium, a publicly-available basketball court, and facilities for a community daycare center which could accommodate as many as 40 to 50 children. The church’s new building will be constructed on a 14-acre site which the church is purchasing from Moody’s Co-Workers.
One of the issues discussed between the church and the planning board is whether the church will need to construct a sidewalk along the entire length of the property’s frontage on Cressey Road. The church leaders have stated they believe this to be an unnecessary and excessive expenditure. Other issues are the location of the parking lot, and the question of how close the front of the building should be in relation to the intersection of Narragansett Street and Cressey Road.
Summit Community Church was founded in 2018 as the result of a merger between the South Gorham Baptist Church and SouthCoast Community Church of Scarborough. From 2018 through 2020, Summit held its services at their facility on Gorham Road in Scarborough, while maintaining ownership of the former Baptist Church building on County Road. Recently, Summit sold their Scarborough land and facilities to the Second Presbyterian Church of Portland, which then moved all its programs to the property in Scarborough. At the same time, Summit moved its programs to the basement of its location at 53 County Road in Gorham. Summit leased the rest of the County Road building to Center Point Church, which now holds its services upstairs in the sanctuary.
The Summit Church plans to continue meeting in the basement of its County Road location until its new building on Cressey Road has been completed. So far, Summit has not announced the estimated cost of building its new facility in Gorham. Summit Church has also not announced a start date for its construction project.