Orangevale church planning new community center at Citrus Heights site
CITRUS HEIGHTS — A prime piece of property in Sacramento County is going from retail to religion.
The site is along Auburn Boulevard off Interstate 80 in Citrus Heights. It has been sitting unused for years, but now a local church has higher aspirations for it.
"It's in really good shape," said Vandym Dashkevych, a senior pastor at Spring of Life Church in nearby Orangevale.
Dashkevych has some supersized plans for the big building in Citrus Heights.
"It's going to be a very nice picture for the community," the pastor said.
For years, the site was a Kmart store but the retailer closed in 2016 and business leaders say the vacant building has been a blight on the neighborhood.
"For a long time, there's nothing there but a chain link fence, [and the] parking lot was completely torn up," said Diane Ebbit-Riehle, the executive director for the Citrus Heights Chamber of Commerce.
Now, the Spring of Life Church just purchased the property. The Slavic congregation plans on opening a new community center there.
"We don't just have religious services. We're more open for people," Dashkevych said. "We serve refugees, we serve kids, teenagers, young generation, so we're open for people."
The campus will be able to host festivals as well as assist recent immigrants who have fled the war in Ukraine.
"They need help at the beginning," Dashkevych said.
Plans call for offering services and classes to help the refugees settle in.
"The people can come, they can learn English language, they can know more about the documentation, taxes, insurance and everything," Dashkevych said.
Nearby businesses are looking forward to the church bringing more people to the neighborhood.
"We need some more traffic in this area so we can have more customers," said Calvin Au, the owner of nearby Venice Nail Studio.
"They're going to want to go someplace after church," Ebbit-Riehle said. "They're going to want to go shopping so to me, I thought it was great."
Church leaders are now working with the city to start the permitting process.
"They did a lot for us," Dashkevych said. "They opened their doors to talk to us and to figure out what we need to do and how we need to do that."
Fundraising efforts are beginning to help pay for improvements.
"No idea how much it's going to cost but I guess it's going to cost a lot," Dashkevych said.
Church members are hoping to have the new site open its doors in a couple of years. So far, no decision has been made about what will happen to their current church in Orangevale.