A community aquatic center may be coming to Edwardsburg in the coming years.

The First Pentecostal Church in Edwardsburg is looking to sell a building and plot of land on U.S. 12 and a resident has expressed purchasing the property and opening a grant funded aquatic center. While both parties are in favor of this plan, the path to making their vision a reality is more complex than it may first appear.

More than a decade ago, Pastor Robert Geans of the First Pentecostal Church in Edwardsburg realized that his congregation was growing too large for the building at 27341 U.S. 12, where he had started many years ago.

As a result, the church purchased 11 acres of land in 2004 and an additional 10 acres of land in 2007. On the 11-acre plot of land they built a large, attention-grabbing building where Geans planned to grow his flock.

“We were all out of room in our current place,” Geans said. “We had big plans for the new building.”

However, setbacks came. Contractors drug out construction and lacked attention to detail. Then an agreement with a loaning institution fell through. All in all, Geans put $1.3 million into the building using church funds, and it was estimated that it would take another $2 million to complete the work necessary to make the building useable.

All of this added up to the church needing to abandon the project.

“We decided it was in our best interest to sell the property and the building, so that the financial burden of finishing what’s there is not on the people of the church,” Geans said. “As a pastor and leader of people, I don’t think that it would be right or integrable to place that burden upon them.”

The church has already sold the 10-acre plot of land, which is now being used for agriculture. The 11-acre plot, along with the unfinished building, is still up for grabs.

Jeff Feltzer, an Edwardsburg resident who lives next door to the property, has expressed interest in purchasing the property to become either a grant or donor funded community aquatic and athletic center, tying in with the Edwardsburg Sports Complex.

“I’ve got a long background in swimming,” Feltzer said. “There’s really not a lot of facilities in southwest Michigan for this type of thing other than the YMCA. So, bringing another pool to a very underserved area, aquatically speaking, is something I think would be fantastic.”

The goal of the facility would be to bring aquatics and swimming to the underprivileged, provide aqua therapy for senior citizens and establish a swim team for Edwardsburg High School.

The property the church is selling is perfect for Feltzer’s planned aquatic facility as it has a steel structure and a center large enough for a competitive size swimming pool, he said.

“There’s a lot of avenues from which we could utilize this facility, and we’re trying to approach all avenues with state funding and local donors to try to make this happen,” Feltzer said.

While Feltzer is excited by the building and ready to move forward, his plan may be far off.

One of the biggest hurdles the aquatics center will face will be zoning, as the facility does not yet have zoning approval. Another will be getting grants, donors and funding together.

“It’s all the very beginning stages,” Feltzer said. “Nothing is concrete. We don’t have a committee planned yet or anything. But this is a group of people and officials trying to move in this direction, see if we can gain public consensus and get this facility up and running.”

The entire process may take a few years, but Feltzer is confident that once the building, zoning and funding is in place, he can have the aquatics center up and running in 12 to 18 months.

In the meantime, Geans, who expects to make back all the money he put into the building on the sale, will keep looking for ways to expand the church that would not be so costly to the congregation. One idea he has is to place an addition on the church’s current building, which he believes will be cost effective, so long as it is possible to retain the structural aspects already in place.

“[Abandoning the building project] is not a disappointment,” he said. “It’s a change in focus toward being fiscally strong.”