Jacksonville music academy buys former Grace church as it grows

Songs that once floated down these wide hallways — a bene placito harmonies weaving through the memories of years and dust where science and sound intersected — have faded into silence.

Only the occasional shout of instructions or grunts of exertion echo down the corridors of MacMurray Hall, a landmark science building on the former Jacksonville college’s campus.

It’s another moving day for The Esprit de Corps Academy, the last for the non-profit Jacksonville music academy as it settles into its new home inside the spacious 34,670 square feet of the West Morgan Street building that since 1909 had housed Grace United Methodist Church.

Parishioners decided to put the church building up for sale in October. About $20,000 a month was being taken out of church investments to keep it afloat, the Rev. Erik Slingerland told the Journal-Courier at the time.

Services will continue through a partnership known as State Street Ministries that includes Grace, Centenary and Waverly United Methodist churches. It will be led by Slingerland and the Rev. Kevin Hinkle.

There was something missing between the initial inspiration and the final score, though.

Since 2011, Grace UMC had allowed a wing of the church to be used as a warming and cooling center for the homeless. What would the sale of the building mean for the center, New Directions, especially at a time when the community was grappling with a precipitous rise in homelessness?

An out-of-the-blue breakfast would bring the answer.

The Esprit de Corps Academy director Timothy Smith is watching the bustle of activity as dedicated individuals and crews from First Christian Church’s Life Groups, Scout Troops 107 and 113 and the Jacksonville High School football team shuttle boxes, instruments and furnishings from MacMurray Hall to the Grace building.

It’s the latest tick mark in the timeline of a vision Smith and Scotty Dewolf of Jacksonville developed in 2022: To enhance and transform lives through exposure and instruction in the performing arts.

They vowed to “create a vibrant performing arts academy that provides a safe space for all to explore the world of artistic expression.”

The pandemic struck a dissonant chord in the plan but, in 2023, the academy began offering free curriculum, group music instruction and instruments to students who don’t have their own — starting with 30 when the doors opened, first at First Presbyterian Church, then at MacMurray Hall and now at Grace, which 150 students soon will fill with music.

Because of that invitation to breakfast.

Smith received a call from Jacksonville philanthropist developer Rabbi Rob Thomas inviting Smith to meet one morning with him and his wife, Lauren.

He arrived to find Rob and Lauren, and a half-dozen others: two attorneys and four representatives of New Directions.

He listened closely as Rob and Lauren laid out their vision for the fragment that would complete the symphony: They would provide the funds to allow the academy to purchase the church, with the provision New Directions would remain there rent-free.

The church building would provide “acoustically rich spaces, plentiful classrooms for lessons, and a convenient location and parking to support the teaching of music and theater lessons and to host the shows by the students,” Rob Thomas said in announcing the offer. 

It also ensured New Directions would be able to “provide the critically important services to those most in need,” he said.

The Esprit de Corps Academy stood at a crossroads.

Smith’s mind raced with how to present it to the academy’s board for approval. He knew it would not be easy to reconcile the non-profit academy taking on the challenge of purchasing and maintaining such a massive facility.

“It’s biting off a lot to keep up a facility that size,” he said.

He recognized what it would mean to the lives of young musicians.

Not to get too science-y, but there are scores of studies that show the importance of music. Young musicians tend to do better in school and develop stronger language and reading skills than non-musicians.

Smith provides real-life testament to those findings.

“I grew up on a Franklin farm and majored in music and was able to go places a farm kid otherwise might not have been able to go,” he said. “I had opportunities opened to me. I think there are other kids out there who could experience some of the same opportunities.”

He also knew it would be a major boost for the academy’s vision.

“We started out, I thought we’d have 10” students, Smith said. “It’s just grown ever since.”

“Grace Methodist suits our purpose better,” he said. “It’s laid out better. We can expand into theater. We’ll have our own concert hall and The Esprit de Corps Academy has grown to a point that I never expected.”

Academy board member Susan Weller was among those who now had to decide what happened next.

Trepidation would not be understating the reaction.

“I was horrified. I really was,” she said. “I mean, I could see that this was going to be a giant step for us. What it was going to do was multiply the amount of money we had to raise from donors. That was my main fear, was that it was going to be something that we simply couldn’t afford.”

She said she knew the Grace building would be a better fit than MacMurray Hall, but Smith owned the hall and the academy was using it for free.

“It was better than this, absolutely better than this,” she said while watching the moving process from a hallway in MacMurray Hall. “I took quite a bit of time trying to figure out how to make this work. And finally, one of the other board members said, ‘this offer is not going to come up again’.”

The board approved the move, and in mid-March The Espirit Decorps Academy closed on the $280,000 deal.

The weeks since ink was placed on paper have been filled with transforming the Grace building into The Esprit de Corps Academy.

A new sign heralds the transformation, and people can get a look inside this week when the academy hosts Jacksonville Area Chamber of Commerce’s Business After Hours from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. Thursday.

Smith and Weller recognize the song is far from finished.

“We could be at 200 students in a fairly short time and that’s fine,” Weller said. “We will have to get instruments for those kids, because they don’t pay for their instruments. We’ll have to get teachers — and Tim does all of that.”

Smith would like to see the academy have a regional presence.

To that end, board member Ginny Walsh bought the former Odd Fellows building in Franklin and hosted a meeting to get a sense of interest in using part of it for a satellite of The Esprit de Corps Academy.

Thirty-five people turned out in a town of about 600.

“That says something,” Smith said. “There’s a lot of interest in rural schools in theater and in music.”