who hate Lutheran doctrine and worship.
Hasn't that worked just great?
Here is the link, where clicking on the little camera will open up the video report.
Downtown Appleton Theater Gets New Lease on Life
Updated: Feb 21, 2009 08:46 AM MST
Big Picture's New Lease on Life
By Matt Smith
An empty building in downtown Appleton sees life once again.
The Big Picture Theatre, which almost instantly failed several years ago. For nearly two-and-a-half years it sat empty, leaving the city unable to collect tax revenue on the property.
It lost about $3 million in its property valuation and cost the city $48,000 in potential tax revenue but now it breathes new life.
Pastor Jim has a big mission for the movie theater-turned-church. It's called The Core, an outreach of St. Peter Lutheran Church in Appleton.
Three weeks in the building, it finds 100 people coming each Sunday night -- and the official launch doesn't begin until this weekend on the World Wide Web.
"I see this space, we view it very much as a community space, so we'd love to have people in and out of our building," Pastor Jim Skorzewski said.
The church signed a one-year lease for the building. It doesn't change much for the city since it's still technically on the market.
"Where will we be at a year from now? I wish I could tell you. Is it going to be just the right size? Is it going to be too big? Too small? I don't know," Skorzewski said.
For the city this could become somewhat of a Catch-22. One one hand, it's great that a building this size downtown is occupied. On the other hand, if the church decides to buy the building it becomes a non-profit, meaning the city couldn't collect any tax revenues.
But arguably the city could see a much greater impact. The argument: Bring more people to The Core and you bring more people downtown.
Jennifer Stephany of Appleton Downtown Inc. said, "That's exactly what you need in the central district, certainly at a time we're trying to bring more people into the district, and that kind of foot traffic is going to be good for everybody."
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GJ - Get a bankrupt property to start something new in WELS - when was that last tried? I remember - Prairie, the prep school property created from a failed Roman Catholic prep school. Prairie is now a prison, giving new meaning to the question, "When did you get out?"
WELS is much better at turning their property over to non-Lutherans - the Coral Springs church in Florida, run into the ground by Church Growth superstars, now Roman Catholic; Crossroads in S. Lyons, Michigan, now Evangelical Covenant. If memory serves me, some of the same CG scoundrels were involved in both disasters.
