Batterson is the pastor at the National Community Church, which is developing a new location on Virginia Avenue in Southeast Washington. Why did you acquire that land?
In 1996, we were one church with one location. About 25 people attended on an average weekend. We started small. […] We didn’t think we would ever purchase a piece of property. Now, we’re one church with 10 services at six locations. We’re a multisite church. We love meeting in movie theaters. Last year, we got a $3 million gift. That gift put us in a place where we could look for property. We found this property at Eighth and Virginia Avenue SE. It’s strategically situated between Capitol Hill, the Navy Yard and the riverfront. […] After months of praying and negotiations, we got a contract on that property.
What will you do with the property?
The vision in a nutshell is to build another coffee house like Ebenezer’s on the other side of the Hill. We want to build a perfect space. We want to build out a perfect theater that the community can use and we’ll use it on Sundays for our purpose. We’re still fine-tuning the vision for this space. If we have the space and ability to do it, we would love to provide a high-quality day care or child development center. We think we could design something that really meets the needs of families on Capitol Hill.
How did you find that site?
We asked our Realtor … to look around for property and see if anything was available. We found one piece of property on all of Capitol Hill that met our specifications, that was big enough that we’d be able to build something from the ground up. … It’s so perfectly situated. We think that by renovating that property we’re going to be able to bring a lot of revitalization to lower Barracks Row.
Emily Babay
