After being vacant for a little over two years, Orangeburg's former Chestnut Street Winn-Dixie will be serving food of another sort -- food for the soul -- as early as next fall as Cornerstone Community Church plans to renovate the building as part of a 1,200-seat worship center.

The church currently on Willington Road has grown from about 75 members to about 1,000 and is bursting at the seams, pastor the Rev. Artie Davis said.

"We are completely out of room," Davis said. "We needed to do something for two years. It took a couple of years and so we prayed and waited to see what plan God wanted us to pursue. We felt like it was the God thing to do."

Davis said since the church built its Willington Road location in 2002, it has added a children's middle school and high school wing that have proven to be inadequate to handle the growing congregation.

Davis said the Chestnut Street church will occupy the entire 48,000-square-foot building and will be "state-of-the-art" with gravity-lift seating, a Starbucks-styled cafe and dining area/seating area, a bookstore, wi-fi access, hi-tech lighting and sound system.

He said the church will be open during the week for the community to utilize.

The church will house the children's ministry from ages 0 to fifth grade, which includes about 200 to 250 children. The children will have a large commons area and then other rooms for break-out sessions.

In addition, all administrative offices to handle a staff of about 30. Currently, Davis said the church has about six full-time staff and five part-time staff, numbers expected to double in the next 12 to 18 months.

The plans are in the architectural phase, which is expected to last about eight weeks. Construction is expected to begin in February 2008 with the first worship service targeted for Sept. 8, 2008.

Davis said it is uncertain how much the upfitting of Winn-Dixie will cost as the architectural plans still need to be drawn before the bidding process begins.

Davis said the Willington Road church will continue to house the middle school, high school and adult small group during weekday evenings.

He said the church, which owns about 10 acres on Willington Road across the street, looked at the possibility of building there but deemed that the location pretty much landlocks the church.

But when the church started to seriously consider the building in middle to late summer, Davis said they knew God has saved it just for them. He said

the Chestnut Street location is also more visible and centrally located with a daily traffic count of about 25,000.

"We are excited to be in a location that will be easy to find," he said. "It has always been in our hearts to be in a visible location in town."

The Chestnut Street building officially closed its doors in August 2005 as part of a company-wide bankruptcy reorganization plan that resulted in the closure or sale of about 46 Winn-Dixie stores throughout the state.

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T&D Staff Writer Gene Zaleski can be reached by e-mail at gzaleski @times anddemocrat.com and by phone at 803-533-5551.

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