The city purchased the former Colleyville Covenant Church in 2022 and has worked to transform it from its former life into a space with classrooms for parks and recreation programming, space for athletic events, and even turned a former storage building into a new voting location.
The backstory
City Manager Jerry Ducay said the city has plenty of both large and small projects on a regular basis, some through the Capital Improvement Plan, but there have been some projects that his staff felt the city could do. In the past, firefighters have helped renovate portions of all three fire stations, he said.
“When we started asking, we realized a lot of firefighters are also talented tradesmen, and they’re either good at carpentry or tile,” Ducay said. “So we started to realize we can do things ourselves and utilize those team members. Our goal is to try to utilize the skillset that we have available to us, and when it’s outside of our skillset or something too big for us, we certainly use the traditional methodology.”
In the case of the recreation center, the city is tapping into the skills of employees to help renovate this project. Employees from multiple city departments have played a role in transforming the former church’s sanctuary into a basketball gym and other remodeling projects, Ducay said.
Put in perspective
The city had set aside $1.5 million to renovate the church but has saved nearly $1 million on the project by doing the work in-house, according to Assistant City Manager Mark Wood.
The city had an architect estimate of $710,000 to construct administrative offices near the gym. Wood said the cost has been around $50,000 by using city employees. Another example inside the recreation center was the demolition of walls in what was formerly Sunday school classrooms. This carried an initial estimate of $32,000, but Wood said the city has spent about $2,000 on that project. The voting annex had an estimate of $100,000 for renovations, but the city spent $17,000, and $12,000 of that was on an automatic glass sliding door, Ducay said. The city used its staff to make a restroom compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the landscaping was done in-house as well.
There have been some renovations the city has not been able to do, such as the demolition of a concrete stage, and a contract was awarded for that project.
Zooming in
The city is also doing projects such as irrigation, which started March 11. As part of the purchase, the city also had about 9 acres of open space combined between the back and front of the property, which faces Glade Road. The underground irrigation system was done to save money as well, Wood said.
In the future, the back portion of the property could be used for soccer or flag football. The city has placed a proposition on the May 4 election to see if there is interest from the community to expand the facility and add fitness options, such as a weight room or walking track.
What they’re saying
“Every dollar we can save is one dollar that we either don’t have to ask our taxpayers for or we can fund another, much-needed project that our taxpayers want to see come about,” Ducay said. “So it’s a win-win for our community. It is something that if the opportunity is there, we will pursue it to that extent we can, and we will do so.”
Editor's note: This article has been updated to include additional information.
