The bell at Central Presbyterian Church in downtown Columbus may not ring often anymore, but as Jason Gay pulled down on the rope, it sounded as regal as ever.
Gay, who is head of capital projects for Columbus Association for the Performing Arts, or CAPA, said that back in the 1880s, Columbus firefighters used the bell tower to spot faraway smoke. They rang the bell to sound the alarm.
The church was so important to the firefighters that when the tower blew off in a windstorm, they raised money to help rebuild it.
"They donated $425, which in today's dollars is about $14,000, which is a pretty significant gift for a little fire department," Gay said.
That’s part of the history that CAPA hopes to preserve as it turns the old church into a new performance space.
CAPA plans to preserve a lot of the building’s history, while making it an ideal place for bands, comedians, dancers and others to perform.
CAPA purchased the church building on South 3rd Street about 12 years ago at the behest of the congregation. The church has sat empty for a long time and it shows: paint peels, bits of plaster litter the floor, and chairs, ladders and lamps are strewn on the floor. When the sun shines, though, rows of stained glass windows glow gold.
"Churches in a way are sort of performance space in the sense that they're wide-open areas made for congregation," said CAPA President Chad Whittington.
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Whittington said CAPA bought the church knowing Columbus would one day need a space like it. Now, CAPA is nearing its $14 million fundraising goal and hopes to begin renovations by the end of this year.
The pews are already gone. A balcony still wraps around much of the room.
"Pretty much what you see today is going to stay exactly the way it is, with the exception of the dais. The pulpit area is going to be taken out," Gay explained.
In place of the pulpit, CAPA will put up a temporary stage that can be moved or removed depending on the needs of the artists.
"The idea is to create flexibility within this space. The flat floor is a great opportunity for us to program different groups that we can't do in our fixed seating theaters right now," Gay said.
for the Performing Arts is raising funds to convert the old church into a flexible performance space.
Columbus already has a few historic open-floor venues. The Bluestone, for example, hosts concerts and special events in the former First Baptist Church on East Broad Street. And in the University District, the Newport Music Hall was originally built as a movie theatre in the 1920s.
CAPA, however, doesn’t have anything else like Central Presbyterian Church in its portfolio.
"We're now cognizant of so many times when someone calls us about something and we say, well, we don't have the venue right now that would work for that event, but we've got one that's coming," Whittington said.
Central Presbyterian should fit about 600 people for a standing concert, 300 for a seated banquet and something in between for a seated event like a comedian's performance.
Whittington said that fills a capacity gap for CAPA.
"Our 2,500 seat venues are too big for a lot of acts…and some of our smaller venues are too small for some acts that we want to pull from the campus area, Short North, the Old North clubs," he said.
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Whittington sees the venue as a place where acts can come to build their audiences before heading onto bigger stages. He says it’ll also be a community space.
“The model assumes that on Tuesday nights, for example, there will be community groups that will come in and use the building for free," Whittington said.
The church needs a bit of a facelift first. A brick addition in the back will be removed, and CAPA plans to add nicer bathrooms and a concessions area. CAPA also will to redo the front entrance to make it more accessible.
Gay estimates all of that will take close to two years.
"You have to understand, we're going to sell tickets about 12 months before opening. And so, we want to make sure we're ready for an audience," he said.
When Whittington looks to the future, he looks past what he calls "bumps in the road," like the uncertain economy, tariffs that may drive up construction costs and reductions in funding for some arts groups. He believes that Columbus has long-term potential, especially because the region's population is expected to continue growing.
“Population growth is great for us as an arts community. And even within the population that's already here, we've seen much more interest in the arts over the last decade or so," Whittington said.
In a few years, you might be able to catch a rock concert under the dazzling stained-glass window depicting Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. That window won a medal at the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis, Gay said.
"The owner of the (glass) studio went to church here, and so, when the window came back from being at the World's Fair, he donated it to the church. It got installed and it's been there ever since," Gay said. "It's a very dramatic and beautiful window. We're very happy to still have it."
It's another little piece of history that will become part of the venue’s future.
