Preserving the legacy of Mount Moriah Church as parking garage project is green lit

File photo: A stained glass window is shown at the Mt. Moriah Missionary Baptist Church on Southwest 3rd Avenue in Ocala, Fla. on Tuesday, May 3, 2022. The historical Black church celebrated its 155th anniversary in 2022. [Bruce Ackerman/Ocala Gazette] 2022.

The Ocala City Council has approved the demolition of the Mount Moriah Missionary Baptist Church in preparation for the new downtown parking garage while also promising to plan an appropriate monument to acknowledge the church’s history and prominence at the site.

On Tuesday, the city awarded a $17.5 million bid to SSC Construction Management LLC to design and build the garage at 55 SW Third Ave. The garage is proposed to be up to seven floors, with each floor designed to hold at least 800 vehicles. The top level would be open-air parking.

The project is anticipated to be completed by around June of 2026.

Design rendering of the new downtown parking garage [SSC Construction Management LLC]

The council also awarded Thomas Amodeo D/B/A A&A Trucking and Excavating a $94,694 contract from the city to demolish and remove the building structures and disconnect and remove the utility services that serve the buildings.

The contract also requires the demolition company to preserve the stained-glass window that serves as a historical marker for the building by removing it and delivering it to the city.

The Mount Moriah Church community has since moved to another location, but members pleaded with the city council to ensure that the site will also be home to a monument to acknowledge the church’s long history and impact on the community at large.

Richard Edwards, the son of Pastor Emeritus Lorenzo Edwards, came to speak on behalf of the church’s history.

The Mount Moriah church was founded in May 1867 when the Rev. Samuel Small and 90 Black members of First Baptist Church, most of them former slaves, decided to break away and form a church of their own, according to church documents.

The Mt. Moriah Missionary Baptist Church is shown on Southwest 3rd Avenue in Ocala, Fla. on Tuesday, May 3, 2022. [Bruce Ackerman/Ocala Gazette] 2022.

“Within the church, there’s a stained-glass window that was designed by my mother to commemorate my brother and others who have gone on to glory,” Edwards said. “We feel like the mother church of many churches in this community.”

Lorenzo Edwards was recently honored by the city of Ocala and the College of Central Florida by the naming a community room after him in the Hampton Center, of which he was the founder.

“(Lorenzo Edwards), being a legacy himself, would love to see, as well as many members who remain, a monument at that location of where Mount Moriah stood as a light and a beacon for this community,” Richard Edwards said.

Historical photos and items are shown in a display case at the Mt. Moriah Missionary Baptist Church on Southwest 3rd Avenue in Ocala, Fla. on Tuesday, May 3, 2022. [Bruce Ackerman/Ocala Gazette] 2022.

City Manager Pete Lee assured the audience that not only would the window be saved but that the acknowledgment of Mount Moriah would be more than a plaque or a cornerstone on the garage.

“This is a very, very important church for all the reasons stated and beyond, and I agree too that it would be beyond a disservice to place a plaque on the side of the parking wall,” Lee said. “It’s not my intent or our staff’s intent to do that. It would be free-standing monumentation.”

Lee said that throughout the process of designing the monument the city staff would remain in touch with church staff to ensure that the monument is appropriate.