In response to existing facilities characterized by church leadership as “fortress-like” combined with a desire for a ministry focused on community outreach, a new atmosphere of accessibility permeates the master plan and sanctuary design. The experience begins at the west and south edges of the site where forbidding street walls characteristic of existing church structures are replaced by a welcoming plaza, supplemented by a bookstore, café, and generous landscaped space.

Open space as urban counterpoint draws a page from the Palmer Plan, Colorado Spring’s original and still relevant master plan, by adopting the strategy of Acacia and Alamo Parks, where a single block creates a civic room for community gatherings. New support facilities along the northern site edge provide significantly larger fellowship and music rehearsal spaces, protect plazas from prevailing winds and create a unified campus experience by fostering linkages with adjacent existing facilities. Primary among the campus links is the creation of a climate controlled promenade, a circulation spine interconnecting the existing Narthex to the new Narthex as well as a series of lobbies and atriums along the way.