MILLEDGEVILLE, Ga. — After more than 50 years of standing watch over the Central State Pecan Grove, one of the hospital’s most unique campus buildings will receive a major overhaul this year. 

Since its construction by the state in 1963, the Chapel of All Faiths has served as a venue for religious and community gatherings for groups around the Milledgeville area. While the building, with its 17,000 square feet, three separate chapels, and several-hundred person sanctuary complete with a pipe organ, still maintains its architectural significance, decades of age and decreasing use have set in on several parts of the structure. As part of the Central State Local Redevelopment Authority’s plan to revitalize the hospital by bringing business, private events, and community gatherings to its central quad, the authority has tasked a local community leader with revitalizing the historic building. 

“What we have planned here in the chapel is to bring it back to life and to bring it into the service of the community,” said Walter Reynolds. “For the last couple of years, the only way anyone had been able to make use of the chapel was if they were a current or former state employee. While that has certainly kept some level of activity in the building, it has mostly been vacant for the last couple of years. Aside from giving the building a good, thorough scrub down and getting it prepared for use, we’re going ahead and setting new policies and rate schedules for use of the facility.”

Reynolds, who is also a Milledgeville City Councilman, is the new building administrator for the project.

For the past two weeks, Reynolds and others have been busy cleaning, planning repairs, and installing utilities at the chapel to remake the building into a public multi-use facility. Through his management and consulting firm, Capitol Ideas Consulting, Reynolds hopes to attract local residents and businesses to the chapel and the CSH Pecan Grove, and the two venues have no shortage of potential.

“Whether it’s a celebration of life event, a wedding, or a family reunion, there are really no limitations on what sort of event we can host between the chapel, the fellowship hall, and the [pecan] grove,” said Reynolds. “Capitol Ideas Consulting will rent the 12-acre pecan orchard and the chapel and fellowship hall, but our goal here is to make it affordable and accessible to the community. … Right now we’re seeking partners in the community, and we’re looking for organizations that would like to set up office space here in the chapel. There are a number of rooms available inside the chapel, and we would love to offer nonprofit organizations, independent agents, and anyone along those lines an affordable office space.”

In renting out the CSHLRA-owned chapel and pecan orchard to local groups, Reynold’s plan would provide space at a less expensive rate than privately-owned venues. Although the authority is still in the process of finalizing rates for the rental spaces, the board hopes to eventually use the resulting funds for an ambitious project at the Pecan Grove.

“We had a community appreciation day out here a couple years back, and … there was a point where [County Commissioner] Sammy Hall, Mayor [Gary] Thrower, [CSHLRA Director] Mike Couch, and myself were sitting around in the Pecan Grove,” he said. “I told them about my idea for having concerts out here, because it’s 12 acres of beautiful wide open space, and we don’t have a tremendous number of residents nearby that you’re going to disturb. I thought this would be the perfect place to be used as a community concert venue and green space because in a way this has always been a community space.”

 

While the plan is still in its early stages, Reynolds hopes to one day obtain a full-scale concert stage for the Pecan Grove, complete with lights and electrical wiring. The idea is in line with the CSHLRA’s goal of bringing events and performances to Central State, in an effort to update the campus for modern-day use and provide economic stimulus to the south side of Milledgeville. As the descendant of multiple longtime Central State employees, Reynolds expressed determination to preserve the one-time decrepit hospital for future Milledgeville residents.

“Both of my grandmothers worked out here, my grandfather on my mother’s side worked at the hospital for a long time, my great uncle was a photographer for the campus, and my great-grandmother’s house is just on the other side of the Jones Building,” he said. “Every Sunday afternoon after church, we would eat at her house and I could see the outside of the Jones Building, the holding tanks, and the auditorium. I used to walk around this campus as a kid, and to be able to be here on this campus and do a small part of redeveloping this property, putting it back to use, and giving it back to the community is a very humbling thing for me. I hate to see these buildings falling in on crumbling foundations, and any way that we can get people in these buildings using them is a great way to fight that.”

Capitol Ideas Consulting is accepting applications for event and office space rental at the Chapel of All Faiths and the Pecan Grove at Central State. For more information go to facebook.com and enter “Grove Events Center” into the search bar or email walt@oldcapitolproductions.com.