Crossline Community Church's construction soon to begin

A church, preschool, gym and athletic fields soon will rise south of Old YMCA Road, west of Lake Hickory Nut Drive and within the Horizon West special planning area. 

The Orange County Board of County Commissioners first approved the Village H Planned Development, aka Crossline Community Church, in 2022. 

The Commission unanimously approved Tuesday, Jan. 13, the development planner’s request to change the square footage of the project. 

The planner requested to decrease the square footage of the preschool from 9,970 square feet to 8,132 square feet and increase the square footage of the church from 17,296 square feet to 29,042 square feet. 

This jump in square footage is due to the project’s engineering firm forgetting to include the second-floor square footage of the building when it was first submitted to the board. The layout remains the same on the 10 acres of land. 

Crossline Community Church first acquired the land so it could have a permanent home.

Since 2010, the church has been renting spaces for Sunday services at West Orange High School and Windermere Preparatory School. 

“We’re basically renting someone else’s home out,” Crossline lead pastor Kevin Valentine said. “We would love to have our own permanent home, and we also know that when a church goes in the community, the community benefits, because of all the stuff we can do that aren’t just on Sunday morning.” 

The preschool will serve about 150 children. 

Beyond teaching the school’s faith-based curriculum, it also will run daily programs before- and after-school five days per week for elementary school-age children. 

Valentine said Crossline Community Church also will offer to drop off children at their elementary schools and pick them up to ease the burden on parents who need to work. 

Children also will enjoy two playgrounds, playscape and splash pads, athletic courts and more. 

“We are building out the property with youth sports in mind,” Valentine said. “So for me, I really feel like youth sports is something that every parent wants their kids involved in and are kind of willing to move heaven and earth to make happen. So we thought, ‘we want to reach families, we want to help families win, so let’s build out the property with families in mind.’”

Valentine said he wants to have a school of the arts along with the preschool in the future, while also being a place for parents to relax while their kids are at practice. 

He said they could run parenting classes, communication classes for families, yoga classes and more.  

Valentine said families will be able to use the sports fields, which also will be rented out to certain sports organizations for football, flag football, soccer and lacrosse games. 

More than that, he said he’d like to run a sports program out of the property to teach kids sports such as soccer, baseball, T-ball, flag football, tackle football and lacrosse. 

“So we want to have a mixture of sports that we run ... and then also be available for club teams or practices for other organizations around the area,” he said.

The worship center will seat 400 people. 

“We’re creating a place where families want to come to and be at and hang out at,” Valentine said.

People in Horizon West already are waiting in anticipation for the development to be completed, Valentine said. 

“I’m excited already about the people that we’re meeting that are excited about us being there,” he said. “We’ve got a lot of goodwill in the neighborhoods around us that are excited about seeing us and about seeing us come down. I’m really excited about the connection, the community and being a regular part of what’s happening in Horizon West.” 

While construction has not started yet, Valentine said it is projected to begin in the fall, with the project expected to be complete in the following 12 to 14 months.

Valentine said they’ll open by Christmas of 2027 or early 2028.