Worldwide Church of God leaving Pasadena

Officials moving headquarters to Glendora

Pasadena Star-News/October 25, 2004
By Gary Scott

Pasadena -- The Worldwide Church of God will soon leave the former Ambassador College campus, its home base for more than 50 years, for the smaller, less expensive trappings of an industrial building in Glendora.

Bernard Schnippert, chief financial officer for the church, confirmed the Worldwide Church of God is in escrow to buy a 50,000-square-foot office building at 2011 E. Financial Way. The property is being sold by an industrial engineering firm, Caltrol Inc., which plans to relocate its headquarters to Nevada.

"Emotionally, we enjoyed our time on the Pasadena campus, but it is too much facility for us now,' Schnippert said. He expects the church will close escrow on the Glendora property in early November and will begin moving its offices there some time after the first of the year.

The move is one in a series of steps to downsize the church's holdings and scale back the size of its administration. Schnippert said the church hierarchy plans to cede more authority to the 400 or so individual parishes across the country.

"I think we are in a good place,' Schnippert said. "Our plans are playing out on schedule and as desired.'

Once one of the nation's largest buyers of religious time on TV and radio, the church and its ranks have slowly dwindled since the death of its founder, Herbert W. Armstrong, in 1986.

A rift erupted between those who wanted to take the church in a new direction, eliminating some of the strict church doctrine and cutting back on the lavish spending that marked Armstrong's tenure, and those who wanted to hew to Armstrong's original vision.

Church membership dropped to about 67,000 from about 160,000, and the income fell from a high of about $170 million a year to $25 million.

These changes prompted the leadership to begin looking for ways to dispose of the sprawling, 48-acre Ambassador College campus, which sits in one of Pasadena's most affluent neighborhoods.

The church put forward plans to develop a massive housing project on the property. Nearby residents vehemently opposed any such project, saying the more than 1,000 homes proposed would spoil their neighborhoods with traffic congestion.

In the end, the church decided to sell off portions of the campus. The eastern third was bought by Sares-Resgis, an Irvine-based developer that wants to build condos and apartments.

The heart of the campus, including the administration buildings and the world-renowned Ambassador Auditorium, was sold to two private religious groups, Maranatha High School and Harvest Rock Church.

The remaining land, about 17 acres bordering Orange Grove Boulevard, is up for sale, Schnippert said.

Meantime, the roughly three- dozen Worldwide Church of God employees remain housed in the Ambassador administration building, which the church is leasing back from Maranatha.

Once the church leaves, Maranatha can move ahead with its own plans for the building. According to David Poole, president of the Maranatha board of directors, the school has tentative plans to sell the building to a senior housing developer.