Villages purchase of First Baptist building
 

The Villages has been in negotiations to purchase the former building of the First Baptist church on Rt 42 to be used as a rec center in the Marion county expansion of CDD4. It was announced during the service yesterday and probably is in the happy paper today that First Baptist has backed out of the process and will not be selling the building to the Villages. First Baptist wanted the Villages to provide some of the functionality of the old building in their new church via remodeling as part of the deal, but the Villages would not agree to that stipulation.

Thank for posting the truth

So a business entity and a private entity did not come to an agreement.

Why is this newsworthy?

FBCATV had from day one, stated the requirement of a replacement to the original Church building which has a commercial kitchen and baptistery. When the villages made their offer it was without the addition/replacement of the old building

I have no dog in this fight but I suppose residents that are affected by proposed expansion want to know---if no additional recreation is provided on this property, then where, if at all?

To those of us who use Mulberry Grove Rec Center, it is front page worthy.

Monsieur St. Croix, wait and see. The fat lady is just warming up. There will be a rec center if there is a village...Wait and see. Patience, my friend.


I don't see anything to criticize about the family's business negotiations with the church. It was simply a real estate deal and both sides couldn't come to an agreement.

Has there been some untruth information released?

Who is dropping out of negotiations with First Baptist, the VCDD, CDD4, or the developer?

As I understand it, this rec center (Baptist church building) was going to be bought and paid for by the AAC (the org that manages the $40M settlement with the developer). The developer was not going to pay the bill for this. The only thing the developer offered was to donate the money he was going to spend on a neighborhood pool to the AAC towards the rec center pool. Now, the AAC will probably get sucked into spending $3M for 40 acres on 42, with no building. This is going to be one expensive rec center by the time it's finished.

Perhaps I don't understand the issue. Are you in an area where it is a hardship to drive to Mulberry Grove Rec Center? I go there in a cart from Piedmont and don't find it inconvenient.

Also, you may overestimate the usefulness of the facility that is the old FBC building. It is quite small, and has nothing like the utilitarian value of Mulberry Grove.

I agree with Gracie that this negotiation is not over. The parties have agreed that one side wants to buy and the other wants to sell. The only issue is finding a mutually agreeable price.

The issue is that we don't need 600 more households using Mulberry Grove.

Perhaps their concern is that it would add another choice in the most amenity deprived area of TV

These are things to consider when buying a home here. I drive all over to rec centers for art activities and never think a thing about it.


All rec centers are for the use of all of us. I think this is one of the things that the "family" improved on as The Villages grew.


I kinda think, this problem too will be solved. I just read that they are fixing up and sprucing up Schwartz Park.

I think the District 4 supervisors were very myopic in their approval of this plan. Adding 300 villas will increase the number of villas by 20% (there are currently 1,497). While it's a win for the district because they get 300 additional amenity fees each year, it's an added burden on a district that is already under represented with recreation centers (Regional and Village). The 2 additional neighborhood rec centers will do nothing to alleviate the additional demand in this district for recreation services.