What About the Little Church in the Shadow of the MLS Stadium?

The Fight Back Coalition has released a new video raising an interesting question: what will happen to Faith Deliverance Temple, the Parramore church located right next door to the planned Major League Soccer stadium? The Fight Back Coalition also questions why none of the renderings for the MLS stadium have included Faith Deliverance Temple, whose church will be literally just feet away from the grand entrance.

Fight Back Coalition co-founder Lawanna Gelzer has asked city officials and soccer team representatives for updated renderings to include the actual neighborhood where the stadium is intended to be built. For months she has been told they will look into it, with no results. Now, the Fight Back Coalition has released their own rendering to bring awareness to what is happening in Parramore and how its current residents, businesses and churches are being impacted.

“Fans will have to walk through church property just to enter the stadium’s grand entrance,” the video points out. It will be odd to have thousands of soccer fans marching down Church Street with the church’s property just outside of the entry way. “Faith Deliverance Temple doesn’t belong in the shadow of the MLS stadium,” the video states.

Of course, Faith Deliverance Temple is the small church that stood up to Mayor Buddy Dyer, who threatened to seize the church’s land using eminent domain. Dyer used eminent domain to seize parcels of land next door to the church, but ultimately failed in his threat against Faith Deliverance as he was forced to drop his eminent domain attempt. That failure caused Dyer and soccer team officials to change their plans multiple times before settling on the current controversial site located right next door to the church.

So, what will happen to this Parramore church in the shadow of the MLS stadium?

The video ends by saying the Orlando MLS stadium is “Not right for Parramore.”

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