By Josh Siatkowski | Staff Writer

Seventh and James Baptist Church is in the process of selling half of its acreage to a real estate developer, who will build a 265-unit, 621-bedroom student housing complex a few minutes’ walk from campus.

The sale will transfer half of the church’s roughly five acres of land to Parallel Collective, an Austin-based architecture company that will add to its portfolio of modern, high-rise student housing complexes across Texas and much of the southern United States. The new development is set to begin construction in 2026 and be completed in 2028, according to Seventh and James Pastor Erin Conaway and a Waco Tribune-Herald article.

With the proceeds, Conaway said Seventh and James will build a new sanctuary and welcome center. While the timeline could be similar to Parallel’s, no formal plans have been made for construction.

“We are in the middle of all of that now, dreaming and designing what our new space will look like,” Conaway said.

According to Parallel’s application to the Waco Plan Commission, the complex will be 85 feet tall, and the inside will include amenities like a double-height lobby, a fitness center with a sauna, a market, an outdoor terrace and study areas. The application also lists some more unique fixings, like a “Sky Lounge” and an “influencer room.”

“The architectural design of this proposed student housing development in Waco reflects a modern, high-quality approach that balances material richness with contextual sensitivity,” the application reads.

Conaway did not disclose the transaction value or if any other parties made offers for the land and only said “we listed the property on the open market and had several interested parties.”

Regardless of its sale price, the deal is a monumental shift to Waco’s student housing market, as it will add another Texas-sized living space among the likes of Park Place, University Point and The View to the Baylor bubble. But it’s also a substantial change for the church and its congregation of roughly 180, made up mostly of professors and families.

Conaway said initial conversations about the physical future of the 127-year-old church began four years ago.

“We knew there would be some very expensive items in our future and wanted to plan for them before they became a crisis,” Conaway said.

After hiring an architecture firm to evaluate the use of the current facilities, the report came back with a suggestion to sell two acres of land and tear down the current sanctuary, which was built in the 1950s.

Although the new space will better fit the current congregation, which is much smaller than in years before, parting with a building that had been central to the lives of so many members was difficult, Conaway said.

Tulia fourth-year Truett Seminary student Bryce Shelton, who attends Seventh and James and has worked as a custodian at the church, witnessed those challenges firsthand.

“One of the major concerns was the sense of nostalgia,” Shelton said. “A lot of our members have been going there since the 1950s. Some of them were Baylor students who went to Seventh and James and then settled in Waco and have been going for the past 50-60 years. Most of their lives have been centered in that sanctuary.”

These concerns were met face-to-face in numerous town halls held by the church.

“After those discussions, it really proved that the whole congregation was ready for [the sale],” Shelton said.

Even though Conaway and the congregation feel they made the right choice, the development won’t be without its own challenges. Upon the demolition of the current sanctuary next year, the church will be without a sanctuary for a few years, meeting on Sundays in an auxiliary building.

But the sale also presents new opportunities, such as 600 “new neighbors” that Conaway said he was excited to meet and welcome to the church.