National Community Church | Ebenezers Coffee House

The National Community Church congregation had been holding services at the Union Station movie theater while actively looking to create a permanent place for church activities when they purchased a parcel of land on Capitol Hill. The property contained a crumbling 1908 structure that had become a neighborhood eyesore. As a congregation called to reach those who are unchurched and de-churched in the Washington, DC area, a traditional image of church was not the solution. This new building needed to serve the ever-expanding congregation as a natural gathering place for the church and the community to intersect.

Preserving the corner facades of the structure, the site was transformed into a vibrant coffee shop for the dynamic church. The building serves as a transition between the historic residential neighborhood and the large-scale commercial office buildings surrounding the property. Formally playing off the rhythms of the residential towers of the adjacent townhouses, the façade stitches glass and brick to link scale and form.

The new three-story structure maximizes the available area onsite by providing a retail coffee house on the street level, upper level offices for the church and staff, and a basement that has been fully integrated with technology, video recording, and theater lighting for uses by both the church and community.