Church Gym Would Bump Soccer Fields

Mission Viejo council members are cautiously weighing a nondenominational church’s offer to build a $15-million community center and public gymnasium on city property.

Some council members acknowledge that the offer is generous but say the site might be more valuable as soccer fields, its current use.

At stake is construction of a two-story, 80,000-square-foot facility that would feature a basketball gymnasium and space for other nonprofit organizations, the largest being the Boys & Girls Club.

“It sounds like a wonderful opportunity for Mission Viejo,” said Councilman John Paul Ledesma, “especially since the city won’t have to pay a cent to build it or maintain it.”

The proposal was initiated last fall when an anonymous donor offered to build a facility for the Pacific Center for Positive Living Church in Lake Forest. The church formed the Gabrielson Family Foundation to handle the gift.

“The donor thought it would be a waste to only use the facility for religious purposes,” said Tom Burton, a lawyer with the Gabrielson foundation. “They had a vision for this to be a multiple-use building for other nonprofits. This is kind of a ‘pinch me’ story.”

But council members Patricia Kelley and William S. Craycraft and Mayor Gail Reavis have expressed reservations about the foundation’s favored site on La Paz Road: the Thomas R. Potocki Conference Center and an adjacent soccer field at the World Cup Soccer Center, used mainly by American Youth Soccer Organization teams.

After listening to the proposal last week, the council directed staff to help the foundation find an alternative site.

“We invested about $2.5 million in the World Cup Center back in 1991,” Craycraft said. “I’m not sure we’ve realized our return from that initial investment. This is a pretty lucrative offer, but that field is a very important part of our youth sports system.”

City officials have expressed no concerns about leasing land at virtually no cost to a religious organization, then allowing the organization to hold weekly services in the facility it builds. Such agreements are legal, said Kevin J. Hasson, president of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a Washington-based nonprofit advocacy organization.

“This is a great deal for both the church and the state, and nothing in the Constitution prohibits the state from recognizing that and acting on it,” said Hasson, whose law firm represents religious organizations on free-expression issues.

The foundation’s founders, Steve Gabrielson, president of an accounting firm in Newport Beach, and Lynn Gabrielson, a pastor with the Lake Forest church, could not be reached for comment.

Boys & Girls Club officials said they were overjoyed by the proposed project.

“I know there’s going to be a lot of kids in Mission Viejo, latchkey kids, who are going to be able to be involved with positive experiences and positive role models because of this facility,” said James Littlejohn, executive director of the Boys & Girls Club of Capistrano Valley. “There are not enough agencies to provide all the necessary services. We could provide after-school programs for up to 300 kids a day at a facility that size.”

The Braille Institute, American Red Cross and a teen center would also use the site, as would the Center for Hope and Healing, a family counseling agency.