I learned that Chris Davenport over at Church Development Fund has a unique insight on space requirements for church plants. Every church is different, but he says that there are three potential challenges on finding the right space:
- Adult Space
- Children’s Space
- Parking
Adult Space
He says you can typically expect to max out at 80% capacity. When you get above 80%, it’s time to think of adding a new service or finding a new space. So based upon this analysis, he says that if your adult capacity is 300, you can safely count on 240 (.80 x 300) adults for your facility. He recommends allocating 15 sq. ft. per person when calculating how many adults your space will hold. This allocation includes the area for the stage. So if you have a facility with 1500 square feet, then it will hold 100 adults.
Children Space
While this will vary if you are in an area with few kids, in general you can plan on 2/3 adults to 1/3 kids. In other words if you have 100 adults, you will have 50 kids for a total of 150 in attendance. (100 adults / 2).
To calculate how many kids will fit in your space, he recommends using the following numbers:
- Nursery: 35 sq ft per child. 350 sq ft is enough space for 10 kids.
- Toddlers: 25 sq ft per child. 250 sq ft is enough space for 10 kids.
- Elementary: 20 sq ft per child. 200 sq ft is enough space for 10 kids.
Keep in mind that the younger the kids, the more adult volunteers need to be in the room and the more toys and equipment is needed. That’s why the younger the child, the more space they take.
Parking Space
Parking can be figured at a ratio of 2 people per car. So if you have 100 parking spaces, you can figure 200 people.
Scenarios
So using these numbers let’s take a practice scenario to determine which factor constrains attendance:
We have a facility with adult worship space of 6000 sq ft. There are three rooms that can be used for kids. One is 1000 sq ft, and the other two are 750 sq ft. There are 175 parking spots. Let’s do the math:
- Adult space: 6000 sq ft at 15 sq ft per person = 400 adults. If you take the 80% rule into play a safe figure is 320. That would allow for 160 kids. It would require 240 parking spaces.
- Kids space: Assuming the larger room is used for nursery you can fit 28 babies (1000 sq ft/35) 30 toddlers (750 sq ft/25) and 37 elementary kids (750 sq ft/20). That’s a total of 95 kids. 95 kids allows for 190 adults (using the 1/3 kids 2/3 adults rule). It would require 143 parking spaces.
- Parking: 175 parking spots would allow for 350 in total attendance or 117 kids and 233 adults.
In this scenario the constraint is clearly children’s space. When looking at a potential facility to hold services in, these numbers are very helpful to think through. That facility with the beautiful auditorium that is set up perfectly for a worship service, may be a terrible fit for children’s ministry or may be a nightmare for parking.
If you want more help with this, leave a comment of feel free to contact Chris Davenport at
Church Development Fund at cdavenport@cdfonline.org.
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