Grace Place buys Naples church property

BUYER: Grace Place for Children and Families Inc. (principals: W. Theordore Etzel III, Bill Hazzard, Jane McLaughlin, Trisha Hare, Patricia Carroll and Phil Plessinger) Naples

SELLER: South West District Florida Annual Conference United Methodist Church Inc.

PROPERTY: 4300 21st Ave. S.W., Naples

PRICE: $1.1 million

LAW FIRM ON DEED: Livingston Patterson Strickland & Siegel PA, Sarasota

PLANS, DESCRIPTION: Grace Place for Children and Families Inc. purchased its 4.29-acre Naples property for $1.1 million

The price equated to $256,410 per acre.

The site features a small sanctuary building and a fellowship hall building with classrooms.

The Naples-based nonprofit is an affiliated agency of the seller, the United Methodist Church, and has been operating from the property for the past six years.

“We felt it would help to show we will be rooted in the community for the long-term,” says Rev. Stephanie Munz Campbell, executive director of Grace Place. “It also gives us the opportunity in the future to develop some of the land to build a new classroom building.”

Adds Munz Campbell: “This is something we have been exploring for several years. We are absolutely bursting at the seams. We are currently teaching 450 people a month, and we still have a big waiting list.”

The nonprofit provides literacy, language, and life skills training to at-risk children and poor families. Campbell says the Golden Gate City area, where Grace Place is located, is the second biggest pocket of poverty in Collier County after Immokalee.

Grace Place mortgaged the property to The Florida United Methodist Foundation Inc. for $880,000.