As preparations are made to begin construction, owners of the Christ the Cornerstone Church raise concerns about the new Center for Excellence that will be built on their property.
Part of Citrus College’s 2020-2030 Educational and Facilities Master Plan includes the college’s plans to build a study center on the corner of Citrus Avenue and Foothill Boulevard. The docket also lists multiple new buildings being brought to the campus by 2030. Among these are a new science building, a new dining hall, a new kinesiology building, and more.
Included is the Center for Excellence building, a two-story community center for both students and faculty. The 2020-2030 Educational and Facilities Master Plan says that the Center is to be used for “community meetings, educational advancement, and to facilitate collegial and regional opportunities.”
The Center for Excellence will also be used for workshops, seminars, workplace resources, training sessions, continuing education, and vocational and non-credit courses. Construction is set to begin in 2027, but questions are already being raised by those who use the current property for their church services
On the property currently is Christ the Cornerstone Church. Created in 2002, the church has gone through many changes throughout the years. The church began in Chino and found itself in Glendora by 2012, under the name Spirit of Life Bible Church, founded by the current chaplain, Dr. Fritz Wilson. The church changed its name in 2018 to Christ the Cornerstone Church.
The small distances between the church and the colleges has the church seeing many Citrus or APU students since their arrival. “We’ve had several students come in, and they would participate up until graduation, and then they moved on from there, going to wherever cities that they lived in,” said Wilson.
With the new plans for Citrus’s Center for Excellence, Christ the Cornerstone Church may take a blow to its community.
Churches like Christ the Cornerstone have been kept alive with a mainly in-person community. Yet since COVID-19’s Lockdown, headcounts in person have dwindled as digital alternatives rise.
“We do have a website out there, but I don’t prefer to use it that much. COVID just really decimated everything. We still maintain that Facebook Live presentation, but I may ditch that here in a minute.”
Dr. Wilson says that most of the community in Christ the Cornerstone Church comes from the San Gabriel Valley, and if they were to move, they would want to stay within the San Gabriel Valley. But to move again would mean to rebuild an already fragile community.
“To leave, it would be very traumatic to the congregation itself,” said Chaplain Fritz Wilson. “It would probably scatter a lot of the believers, even to the point where we may even disband the ministry.”
The concerns that surround the new property are issues that the current church has confronted in its 14 years of residency. From break-ins to speeding cars around the corner, the church hopes that the college understands its concerns for student safety.
“Since we’ve been here, there have been so many accidents right there at that turn,” said Wilson. “You can’t stop, and you can’t see anyone. It’s very dangerous. And those students who do walk from APU, I used to pick up and drive them over.”
The corner of Citrus Ave. and Foothill Blvd. was not the only issue Dr. Wilson was concerned about. The arrival of the Metro Gold Line in 2016 raised a problem of break-ins for the church, and the worry of the same issues occurring at the Center for Excellence.
This question was also considered by the designers of the Center for Excellence, whose job it is to come up with a solution to the potential issues, such as vandalism.
Fred Diamond is the man who these questions reach first. He is the current director of facilities and construction. Anything built or to be built on campus goes through his desk to approve or deny
“Those issues were brought up in our formal competition for the design teams,” said Diamond. “There’s a whole bunch of things that you can do on a design side that subliminally persuade people to stay, there are implied barriers.”
Examples of subliminal design can be seen on streets with islands, implying that drivers should slow down. Another example is how K-12 schools create a non-hostile barrier between public sidewalks and the school grounds.
“Many of the K-12s, the schools, a lot of them have fencing now,” Diamond said. “So they put up fencing, but instead of moving it all the way to the sidewalk, they keep it back with some planting material and stuff like that where it makes it visually appealing.”
Yet some issues are outside the college’s control. The curve separating the church grounds and the college is public property. Only the city may alter the street.
“We’re trying to build back, but this latest move really sets us back,” Wilson said. “It makes it rather difficult to bring people in and then let them know that we will be relocating.”
Although the excitement for a new campus building is circulating, nothing is without its opposite reaction.
