North Adelaide property adviser appointed

A short-term property adviser has been appointed to facilitate the sale of the LCANZ’s Churchwide Office (CWO) and Australian Lutheran College (ALC) sites in North Adelaide.

As previously reported (‘North Adelaide properties to be placed on market’, 28 November 2023), the General Church Board resolved in November last year to place the properties on the market. This followed ALC’s decision to vacate the site and 12 months of careful deliberation.

The ALC campus is no longer fit for purpose and the cost of maintaining the site, largely due to the heritage listing of the 1880s building known as Hebart Hall, is approximately $400,000 per annum. Further, with ALC moving to a distributed learning model, the current site is no longer necessary for its operations. With the college’s on-site community decreasing and buildings not being used, theft and vandalism have also become regular problems.

ALC Board Chair Cheryl Bartel said that relocation to a site ‘more conducive to the delivery of quality learning and teaching’ has been proposed for some time and that ALC will continue to work with the CWO to seek ‘more operationally efficient premises’.

In January, Matt Brew-Bevan began a 12-month role for the LCANZ, which includes doing the due diligence work behind the sale of the North Adelaide properties, such as collation of compliance reports, asbestos registers and heritage restrictions. An architect and a lifelong Lutheran, Matt most recently worked as a national operations manager for a building company following a stint as a property development manager for a community housing entity. He also boarded at ALC while studying architecture at university in Adelaide in his late teens and early 20s (see breakout story).

Being involved with the sale project ‘at the ground level is quite an honour’, he said.

It is envisaged that the proceeds of the sale will be used to buy a fit-for-purpose building that will serve the needs of ALC, the Churchwide Office and, possibly, other Lutheran entities. Surplus funds are likely to be devoted to building mission and ministry sustainability into the future.

Executive Officer of the Church Brett Hausler said the church leaders who established and expanded the North Adelaide Lutheran precinct had left the LCANZ a ‘great blessing’. However, he said, the changing situation for the church in Australia and New Zealand, along with ALC’s adaptation to a new learning model, meant that selling the properties was the ‘responsible thing to do’.

‘What we do now with the resources God has given us can leave a legacy for future generations of Lutherans and help facilitate a new era of mission and outreach for the church.’

ALC campus now ‘tired and abandoned’

Recently setting foot onto Australian Lutheran College’s (ALC) North Adelaide campus for the first time in more than 30 years, Matt Brew-Bevan was shocked by what he now saw – or rather, didn’t see.

Now employed short-term as a property adviser to manage the sale of the LCANZ’s North Adelaide properties including ALC, Matt boarded at the college when it was known as Luther Seminary while studying architecture from the mid to late 1980s.

When he arrived as a ‘17-year-old kid’ from Clare in country South Australia, he found a ‘welcoming place full of like-minded Lutherans’. Today, visiting his old room in Graebner Hall, he was struck by the silence and emptiness.

‘Then it was a magnificent community to live in – it was buzzing. There were 200-plus young people here. There was also Lutheran Teachers College’, Matt said.

‘Walking back into it – and I hadn’t set foot into the place for 30-plus years – it brought back memories. But I looked at my old room – room 107 – it looked tired and abandoned.

‘The reality was that there was no laughter. There were no people, no foot traffic. It’s simply not what it was. That’s unfortunate, but it’s just reflective of where the church is at the moment.’