Elgin church expansion means Prairie Rock will close

An Elgin church plans to expand into the space occupied by a downtown bar, which in turn will close its doors later this year.

Discovery Church has shared the building at Prairie Street and Grove Avenue with Prairie Rock Bar and Grill for about four years, always planning to buy it and take over the bar's space, senior pastor Dan Alarcon said.

The "nondenominational, Christ-centered" church bought the 1920s-era building in December for $1.5 million, and will not renew the bar's lease after it expires Nov. 30, he said.

"We are growing, and we need to create more space so that more people who are far from God can come in," he said. "Anything that's healthy grows."

That wasn't good news for Prairie Rock owner Mike Lyons, who said he'd planned to stay open longer and possibly turn the business over to an employee eventually, when he and his wife move to Arizona.

"Over the years, we established a good business, we established good food," he said. "Why should I let go of that?"

Lyons said he harbors no ill will toward Discovery Church, whose plans he was "sort of" aware of, but questioned if that was the best use for the space. The church will need approval from the Elgin City Council to expand.

The bar generates about $500,000 per year plus revenues from video gambling machines, Lyons said. City officials declined to say how many of those dollars go to Elgin, whose liquor tax is 3 percent and prepared food tax is 8.25 percent. Churches don't pay property taxes.

"I having nothing against this church or any church, but why would they lose their tax dollars in downtown Elgin?" Lyons said. "And then you wonder why the town is not growing."

Sunday services attract more than 400 people, a number that has been steadily growing since the church first started meeting in 2007 at Elgin Community College, Alarcon said. Saturday evening services will launch this weekend.

More than half the congregation comprises second- and third-generation, English-speaking Latinos who respond to its modern messages about relationships, finances and more through the Bible's lens, and in a setting of exposed brick, coffee-shop style decor, and high-quality sound and video systems, Alarcon said.

The church, which occupies about 14,000 square feet, will work with an architect to figure out the best use for the bar's 3,000 square feet, which could include a center for the arts, Alarcon said. A capital campaign will launch Feb. 7 to fund the remodeling. The bar also includes a 4,000-square-foot patio, which could be a great setting for outdoor Bible study and more, he said.

The building has housed a variety of tenants over time, first the Grove Theater through 1976 followed by Prairie Rock Brewing Company in 1995, Prairie Rock Chophouse in 2004 and the Road House and Main Event Elgin in 2009.

Discovery Church's decision to move into a former bar was not without controversy but turned out to be the perfect choice, Alarcon said, crediting his wife Laura's vision.

"It's not a conventional space," he said. "There are a lot of great churches in downtown Elgin, and we wanted to reach those people that other churches are not reaching. It's in our DNA that anybody who walks through the doors is loved and accepted."