Ravaged by the COVID-19 pandemic and declining donations, the Potter’s House of Denver has decided to sell its $12.2 million, 137,000-square-foot megachurch in Arapahoe County, Colorado, and go completely virtual, Pastor Touré Roberts has revealed.
According to the report from the Christian Post, Roberts, who leads the multicultural church along with his wife, Sarah Jakes-Roberts, made the announcement in an interview with The Denver Post published on Monday. “COVID-19 forced every church in America to rethink how to best serve their parishioners and the broader community,” Roberts told the publication.
“Due to the inability to gather and the economic instability of the pandemic, our church, like many other churches in the nation, experienced declining donations.” Instead of trying to do upkeep on an “old building that needed significant repairs,” which they have occupied for more than a decade, Pastor Roberts explained that selling the property and going fully virtual with their services made the most sense.
A statement was made in the Denver Post, “We know development is coming,” said Mark Lampert, known informally as the mayor of Four Square Mile. “The best thing for us to do is put our fingerprint on what is happening.” That’s already underway. Earlier this month, Arapahoe County hosted a public meeting to get input on what neighbors want to see in a future 5-acre park on the property, dubbed Arcadia Park.
“They’re in need of more parks in that area,” Arapahoe County senior planner Molly Orkild-Larson said. Orkild-Larson said she’s aware of neighborhood concern about potential traffic and density impacts from the project — buildings could go as tall as 50 feet. More meetings and hearings about the project go before the public and the county in 2022 as the approvals process moves forward toward a hoped-for September groundbreaking, she said.
Lampert said while his community never envisioned the church — built in 1989 — going away, they don’t want to see the capacious building become a canvas for graffiti artists and vandals, as occurred with the Barn Store less than a mile to the south.
