Article by Josh Witt from the Wichita Business Journal
A fast-growing Wichita church is moving to an east-side shopping center in the midst of its own new chapter.
Five years after husband and wife Jon and Stephanie Morris launched Vima Church, they have signed a lease at Huntley Yards, formerly known as Brittany Center, located at southeast corner of 21st Street and Woodlawn.
The church is moving into 29,000 square feet of the former Vasa Fitness space — which became a Genesis Health Clubs location before closing in 2023.
Jon Morris, lead pastor, said after a challenging start for Vima at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, “things have really taken off for our church.” Its congregation has grown from 450 to 600 people within the last year.
“For the last nine months or so, we’ve been kind of scouring east Wichita, trying to find somewhere for our growing church to land and call home,” said Morris, an Arkansas native whose church has been at 9112 E. Central Ave., just west of Webb Road, since its founding.
Morris said the former gym provides several elements Vima needs.
“To build anything from the ground up right now is just really expensive (as far as) building costs,” he said. “So we were intentionally looking for: is there a building that already exists that we could put a church inside of? So that led us to looking at shopping centers and storefronts because they’re big, open square footages that you can kind of customize. They all have parking lots, and they’re all at usually pretty prime intersections because they want to be accessible to the city.”
Demo work has started for Vima at Huntley Yards, with full construction to start in March. Hutton is leading the design-build.
Early August is the move-in target, Morris said.
Drew Gannon of NAI Martens represented Vima Church on the lease, while Landmark Commercial Real Estate’s John Potts and Don Piros repped the landlord. The shopping center is owned by Wichita-based Elm Gardens LLC.
Morris said the location was a big draw with the church having many younger adults and families.
“Our church is very diverse, too, so there’s a lot of different kinds of communities around there,” he said. “And we’re just a block away from Wichita State. So it’s a prime position.”
The new space will have a large auditorium, kids’ wing, coffee shop and a sizable lobby. Morris said multi-purpose rooms — for both the church and community to utilize — will be a theme across the property.
“It’s going to be a space that’s not just open on Sundays,” he said. “Our goal is to be a space that can serve the community throughout the week for different things.”
That’s something Morris said he has valued at Vima’s current location, which was the decades-long home of Mark Arts before its move to 13th and Rock Road in 2017.
“The church has been actually operating a theater (in the building), which has been great,” he said. “It’s been a great model for us to have people in our building all the time… with different kinds of families and connecting with them, serving them.”
To help pay for the new church, Vima launched a fundraising campaign in the fall with the goal of raising $1.5 million in three years. So far, $1.75 million has been pledged, Morris said.
“We’ve got a really generous church,” he said. “They’re very much committed to the vision and excited to create a space where more people can experience what they’ve experienced.”
With Huntley Yards’ tenant lineup including Dollar Tree, Ollie’s Bargain Outlet and local businesses, Morris said he sees Vima’s arrival — with hundreds of congregants — as a win-win.
“I think we have a great potential to be a blessing to those businesses, but I think those businesses have a great potential to be a great blessing to us as well,” he said.
The former Brittany Center, located next to the Brittany One and Two office buildings, has gone through ownership shifts and the name change to Huntley Yards in recent years.
With 67% occupancy of the rentable space at the 210,000 square-foot center, Huntley Yards owner Elm Gardens has been working its way through site improvements.
According to Landmark’s Potts, renovations are ramping up, in addition to Vima Church’s new home.
In an email, he said the north end of the former Genesis gym will be transformed into small tenant spaces, around 1,700 square feet and larger, facing 21st Street. There is also 10,900 square feet available to lease on the south side of the church.
“This renovation will completely change the aesthetics of the shopping center and make if much more attractive,” said Potts, adding monument signage and further landscaping improvements should aid the center’s appeal.
Huntley Yards’ website notes SPT Architecture and RLG Properties, which has offices in Florida and California, as other key entities in the effort.
