Celebration Church is preparing to open an Arlington campus at the Regency Park Shopping Center in the former Hobby Lobby space.
Pastor Drew King, chief business officer of Celebration Church, said the church will open in the summer.
“We have always wanted to have a Celebration Church campus in the Regency/Arlington area of Jacksonville but haven’t found the perfect location until now,” King said by email.
He said Celebration Church has a large number of congregants in the Arlington area who now drive to the main location on RG Skinner Parkway.
The Regency Park church will be a closer option for them. “But we also look forward to serving the entire community who may not be familiar with Celebration yet,” King said.
The Jacksonville-based church will lease almost 40,000 square feet of space adjacent to and behind Books-A-Million, according to a site plan by landlord Brixmor Property Group Inc., based in New York.
King said the church will feature a 1,000-seat sanctuary, a preschool and children’s wing for kindergarten through fifth grade, a large youth space and classrooms.
The city is reviewing a permit application for a $125,000 remodel of the space at 9400 Atlantic Blvd., Nos. 8, 8A and 9.
Fisher Koppenhafer Architecture and Interior Design is the architect. No contractor is listed.
Regency Park is anchored by Ollie’s Furniture Outlet, American Signature Furniture, Bealls Outlet and, in development, Surplus Warehouse.
Hobby Lobby moved to Parkway Shops in River City Marketplace in 2015 and also opened a store at The Strand at Town Center.
The celebration.org site shows that Celebration Church’s main campus is at 9555 RG Skinner Parkway, in the Baymeadows area. Its office and Celebration College are at 10302 Deerwood Park Blvd.
Its other Northeast Florida campuses are in Westside-Orange Park, Julington Creek and Amelia Island.
It also operates in Orlando, Fort Lauderdale, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., Paris, the Netherlands and Zimbabwe, according to the website.
Celebration Church sold the Deerwood Park Boulevard property Dec. 11 to Full Source LLC for $7 million. King said Full Source owns the building next door.
“We’ve had a great relationship with Full Source and they were looking to expand their space here on Deerwood and simultaneously we were looking to move some of our operations to our hub (Arena) location,” King said.
“So simply put, we sold our building to Full Source, will expand at the Arena, and will move our current functions happening at Deerwood Park there,” he said.
Ameris Bank issued a $6.3 million mortgage to Full Source for the property, which records show is a 78,432-square-foot building on almost 2 acres.
Full Source is an e-commerce company that sells office, safety, industrial, janitorial and maintenance supplies as well as discount apparel.