Arlington Heights church takes expansion in a different direction

The Arlington Heights Evangelical Free Church spent 10 years buying up properties along Haddow Court, Olive Street and Douglas Avenue with plans to demolish them to make room for a $25 million expansion.

Then, two years ago, it only took a few months for the whole plan to fall apart. The expansion project crumbled under vocal disapproval from neighbors and concerns from village planners.

Now, church leaders are moving in a different direction. Within in the next five years, they will open other locations in the Northwest suburbs. And they are renaming the church The Orchard Evangelical Free Church, dropping Arlington Heights from the name, said Ruth Guillaume, the church's communication director.

"We're looking at other suburban sites," she said. "Some will be new campuses and some may be existing churches that want to join Orchard Evangelical."

Guillaume declined to disclose specific sites.

The church won't expand the Arlington Heights church located at 1330 N. Douglas Ave., she said. The church is renting the nine homes it owns on Olive, Douglas and Haddow to families, Guillaume said.

Even though the Arlington Heights expansion fell apart in 2006, and the church has to grow because its membership is increasing drastically, she said. Currently, the church has about 900 parishioners. About 2,000 people attend weekend services. That number is expected to reach 5,000 in five to eight years, Guillaume said.

Until the new satellite sites are open, the church will host two Sunday services at Hersey High School in Arlington Heights, starting on Oct. 19. Those are in addition to the five services held at the Douglas Avenue church.

The church did succeed in winning approval to expand the Douglas Avenue church in 1997, spending $6.7 million on improvements.

Then in July 2006, the church said it wanted village approval of a $25 million expansion that would've included a 319-stall, multilevel parking deck and a 150,000-square-foot addition to the church's 98,000-square-foot building.

Neighbors living around the church had major problems with the plan, especially the parking plan.

Denis Jones and his neighbors held meetings and started a community Web site against the expansion. Anywhere between 10 and 30 neighbors spoke out against the plan during at least five village board meetings. Neighbors also criticized Village President Arlene Mulder for meeting privately with church leaders about the expansion. Mulder acknowledged the meeting, but denied she had done anything wrong.

Jones said he's happy with the plan to open smaller churches rather than expand again at the Arlington Heights location.

"We never objected to them expanding their ministry," he said. "Our concerns were over using their space here."