Calvary Community Center

Client: Calvary Baptist Church

Location: Teutonia Ave & Groeling Ave, Milwaukee, WI

  • Exterior from Teutonia Ave

Calvary Baptist Church has a vision to provide a community center and wellness clinic within their Teutonia Avenue neighborhood. The goal for the community center is to enrich the lives of both the church membership and the neighboring community. The community center includes a large multi-purpose space to host a variety of functions – social gatherings, children activities and worship, along with several classrooms, resource center, and outdoor play area. There are several patient and doctor rooms as part of the wellness clinic on the southern half of the facility.

Through Calvary sponsored programs and local partnerships, this community center will offer assistance to inner-city, low-income students and parents. Year-round programming and services will be offered to enhance and uplift the community.

The final design proposal combines the strengths – it has a bold façade that respects and responds to the design of the existing church. Its organization focuses on easy access to the multi-purpose hall, integrates the educational facility into the lobby and the outdoor play area, and partitions the clinic from the rest of the community center. As a two-story approach, it occupies the currently available property without prohibiting itself from future development.