Microsoft bought 148 acres of land for a new data center just off of Highway 74 in Tyrone. Their land purchase was just what local church Pastor Mark Medlin and his leaders had been praying for. They were able to relocate and renamed their congregation from New Heritage Church of God to Tyrone Community Church.

“Our church leadership had a desire to be closer to the center of Tyrone to make ministry connections more accessible. For the last 13 years we’ve been working in the schools there on Jenkins Road, the high school, the middle school, and the Burch Elementary School. We were doing a lot of stuff there in surrounding Tyrone. The former location kind of isolated us, isolated our community of faith,” said Pastor Mark.

He explained, “For several years, when we would talk to people about New Heritage Church of God, they would say, ‘Now where is your church?’ And even after you told them where the church was, they would say, ‘I didn’t know a church was there.’ But what’s interesting about that, when it was torn down, everybody knew there was a church there and everybody was asking questions about what happened to that church. So I think for us, the move has proven, everyone now knows where we are currently.

Tyrone Community Church was in good shape before their move. They didn’t have any debt on their land. They’d been looking for a good offer. They had even turned down an offer from a business that they felt wouldn’t make a good neighbor to Tyrone.

“One of the offers was going to be a shipping hub there, like a big distribution center for tractor and trailers.” Pastor Mark and his leadership team asked community leaders if that was a desirable business, and found out the city didn’t like it.  

Then a broker from the Fayette County Development Authority contacted them. And it looked and felt right to them. “We didn’t have to sell, but we did want to be closer to Tyrone. And we had looked everywhere in Tyrone for property to build on for other buildings to buy and renovate and just nothing seemed to fit. But the Development Authority came in, they were looking to put that together with a lot of other land acquisitions. And I simply told them, ‘I know you’re buying a lot of land around here, and we have land here with the building, but we’re a living, breathing organization. We’re a church and we’ll have to relocate.’ So I gave them the number that I thought would work for us. It wasn’t but a few hours later, the broker called me back and said they would take it, I think in my personal observation, that it’s an answer to prayer for us.”

They found a property on Senoia Road that another church had tried to renovate and hadn’t been able to complete. They were able to buy that property outright and pay for all the renovations with what they made on their land. And because the other congregation had debt on their property, “It’s an answer to prayer for the church property that we acquired there on Senoia Road,” said Pastor Mark.

Now the church is located much closer to Tyrone, at 1126 Senoia Road, the on ramp going north out of Tyrone to 74. Tyrone Community Church now has Sunday School at 10 a.m. and worship at 11 a.m.

Pastor Mark says that the new location will enable them to both thrive and grow in that location. They even have room on the property to build a chapel that would seat 250-300 people in the future.

Pastor Mark says it was a win-win-win situation. “It’s good. I know it’s good for the Development Authority. I think it’s good for the community. Now we’re down there where everybody knows where we’re at. I know it was good for the other group of people that were there because basically at the time that we acquired it, they had pretty much shut the church down. So it was an answer to prayer for them.”

Pastor Mark, who has been with the church for 18 years says that people are already finding his church in their new location, unlike the old one where people drove by at 70 miles per hour.

What happened to the old location? As soon as the church moved temporarily to Burch Elementary while their new building was being renovated, the Fayette County Development Authority and Microsoft allowed the fire department to use the building for training exercises. But first, the FCDA and Microsoft allowed the church to remove anything of value that they wanted from the old building—fixtures, materials—they even offered up the brick of the building, if they had wanted it.

“A year later, just the way the approach was handled through the Development Authority, the way they tracked all the way through their broker, everything was really, really good. They sent representatives in there and told us we could have basically everything in the building. All they wanted was the land, but they would have to pay to tear the building down. We were able to take out a lot of stuff and a lot of stuff we gave away. And then some of the stuff that they took out, I think they gave away to smaller organizations too, stuff that we didn’t take. So that was a very positive, positive relationship with the Development Authority,” said Pastor Mark.

Pastor Mark is happy that the business that bought the land won’t add to the traffic burden in the area. “I understand that there won’t be that many people that come to that data center. In other words, it won’t be a traffic snarl. It would’ve been if it had been a semi tractor trailer distribution center. We didn’t know it was Microsoft. We just knew it was some kind of data center.”

It’s left the church in a very secure position, financially. “We broadened our outreach. We are now supporting an orphanage in Ukraine, and we’ve been able to step up with that. We also support an organization, City of Refuge. I’m real good friends with the founder of that, Bruce Deel, and he has started an organization called MOST, Men Opposing Sex Trafficking. And so we’re going to be able to do more with our support for them than we have in the past, and we’ve been supporting those things. The extra money that we have is going to help us do what we’ve always intended to do.

“We have a great group of people in our community of faith that give towards something if they know there’s a need. And what I have never really done in my pastoral ministry is ask people for money for things about the church, about what the church was doing. I think if we’re doing what the Lord’s called us to do that, all the other stuff, the power bill, the insurance payments, all that stuff’s going to be taken care of. Just like where we’re sitting right now, everything’s been taken care of, and Romans 8:28, All things work together for good to those who love the Lord and are called according to his purpose. And so this has been good for us and we’ll continue in the future,” said Pastor Mark. He concluded, “The church is not gone. We’re still here. We’re just in a different location and we’re doing much better than we were before.”

According to Niki Vanderslice the President of the Fayette County Development Authority, the church was one of five entities whose land was pulled together for the Microsoft Data Center project. She said, “I am delighted that the acquisition of that property allowed the church to plant roots in a new location and serve the Tyrone community.”

In general, the neighbors around the property were also okay with the Microsoft Data Center Project. One neighbor requested a magnolia tree between their property and the data center, because his wife likes them. After closing, Niki personally delivered a magnolia to his home.

The Microsoft Data Center is also something Tyrone wanted. According to Tyrone Mayor Eric Dial, “The Development Authority came to us with a use that was consistent with our long-term plan that was shared with the county many years ago. We partnered with the county in making the decision that in this area we wanted to see a business technology park.”

Mayor Dial says that the total tract of land is about 150 acres. While Microsoft has purchased it, there is no timeline on the table for when development of the data center will take place. Mayor Dial says that his “hope” is that development will begin within the next two years. When it happens, the plan is for two buildings of about 250,000 square feet each.

For those wondering just where this data center will be located, Mayor Dial describes the property as abutting Fairburn and being across Highway 74 from the Wendell Coffee Golf Center.

Mayor Dial says that he feels that Microsoft will be a good neighbor. “We are pleased that a very well-respected company has decided to make Tyrone its home.”