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Abbey window 425x282Queen’s Park Govanhill Parish Church’s Govanhill Trinity building is a B-listed church built in 1878-80, and has been out of use for a number of years despite its potential. The Govanhill Community Development Trust is currently seeking a contractor to undertake a feasibility study to determine the possibilities for the building. The contract value is estimated at £10,500.

Queen's Park Govanhill Parish Church - Trinity Building Feasibility Study

Queen’s Park Govanhill Parish Church’s Govanhill Trinity building is a B-listed church built in 1878-80. It consists of a main sanctuary with a balcony level, large hall, small hall, offices, café space, stores, kitchen and toilet facilities. The Trinity building has some surrounding grounds with shared boundaries to neighbouring tenements. The sanctuary has not been in use for a number of years.

At a general level the building requires various repairs, redecoration and an ongoing programme of scheduled and reactive maintenance. The total cost of this planned maintenance is projected at £317,000 over the next ten years. A detailed Survey and Condition Report was conducted in August 2015 and is included with this Brief.
Given the merger of the two congregations, the Trinity building is now effectively surplus to requirements. Members of the former Trinity congregation are now worshipping at the Queen’s Drive building. While the Grace and Flavour café continues to operate twice weekly, the Trinity building is otherwise only used for occasional hires. These have included use by the local youth project, training sessions for local organisations and a pilot ESOL and Literacy project.

Glasgow Presbytery Church of Scotland and Queen’s Park Govanhill Parish Church are keen to explore the potential for the Trinity building to remain in use for the benefit of the community. The building rests at the heart of the Govanhill community, a vibrant area but one suffering deep poverty and a number of challenges. The church is also within a Priority Area parish – one of the Church of Scotland’s parishes in the neighbourhoods which are in the bottom 5% of Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation datazones.

There has been interest in the use of the building by a number of potential tenants. These include independent churches who would seek to use the building on Sundays. Local organisations are also interested in using the space for short and longer-term activities. At least one organisation has expressed a serious interest in becoming a long-term tenant within the space. There has never been any formal marketing of the space so the true extent of the demand is unknown.

It is now important that options for the use of the Daisy Street building are fully appraised. For the Trinity building to be retained by Queen’s Park Govanhill Parish Church, a full exploration of the costs involved needs to be undertaken with and with a clear case built for the use of the building.

The Trinity building has the potential to be a hugely valuable resource for the Govanhill community, but not one which the church can afford to retain unless it is viable and can meet identified community needs.

Govanhill Community Development Trust is working with Queen’s Park Govanhill Parish Church to support consultants to prepare a feasibility study for the Trinity building. We will support the recruitment, appointment and management of consultants to ensure the outputs are delivered to the required standards.

We are seeking consultancy support to provide a feasibility study for the use of the building. This will have a number of project outputs:
1. A business plan
2. Architectural Options Appraisal
3. A presentation of the results of the research and the two documents to the Kirk Session of Queen’s Park Govanhill Parish Church
More details can be found in the related brief with this notice.

Contractors wishing to bid on this opportunity should express interest.

Deadline for the submission of tenders: 27 January 2016 17.00

Contact:
Govanhill Community Development Trust
79 Coplaw St,
Govanhill,
Glasgow
G42 7JG
UK
For the attention of: Dave Zabiega
Telephone: +44 1416363665
E-Mail: dzabiega@govanhillha.org
http://www.govanhillha.org/govanhill-community-development-trust