The current site of Grace Church, in Monroe, Georgia, was an old post-World War II era school campus comprised of a few buildings that the church repurposed for the use of their church facilities. Some of the existing buildings on the site were converted into a gym, church offices, conference rooms, and classrooms, a church operated community café, and a large worship building. There is an abandoned building on the site that was originally designed and used as a 1 story classroom building measuring 30 feet x 275 feet (8.250 sq.ft.) that sits along the Midland Avenue portion of the site. It is the only non-utilized structure remaining on the site. Grace Church wished to convert this building into student housing for seminary students that the church sponsors.

Axis was contracted to do a preliminary (schematic) design for housing that could be built within the existing classroom building. The design consists of 6 apartment units – (4) four-bedroom units and (2) one-bedroom units. In the center portion of the building there is a small community space (625 sq. ft) as well a laundry room for the apartment units. A series of small patio spaces were designed off of the existing sidewalk that runs the entire length of the backside of the building, facing the Church’s parking area and outdoor recreational area.

The project plan is to keep all of the existing structure of the building, which is a steel framed structure with masonry exterior walls. All of the existing doors and windows will be demolished, and a handful of carefully selected new window openings will be cut into the exterior masonry wall to provide light and ventilation needed for some of the new apartment spaces. All of the new apartment units and the community room will be built within the demising walls of the classroom spaces in the building. All new doors and windows will be provided for the building, along with fresh paint for the exterior masonry, and some new exterior finishes on the Midland Avenue side of the building to give the renovated building some curb appeal. All new HVAC, electrical, and lighting systems will be provided throughout the building as well.

Fully developed floor plans, exterior renderings of the proposed building as seen from Midland Avenue, and a work scope narrative for contractor pricing were provided to Grace to Church to use as a starting point for their fundraising efforts for the project.