Renton Lutheran Church died in 2006. But by dying, the downtown Renton church is giving birth to something bigger. In a little over a year, the church grounds will become home to a center containing veteran apartments and a coffee and wine bar, plus additional retail or classroom space awaiting a tenant.

“I’m thrilled to death with it. I couldn’t be happier. It’s just terrific,” says Martha Myers, Renton Lutheran Church pastor for nearly 24 years. Myers is now interim pastor of Shepherd of the Hills Lutheran Church of Issaquah.

Constructing that terrific center — Compass Center – Regional Veterans Complex — will give life to a vision held by Myers and her former congregation. A vision to leave behind a center for the community.

Myers and her congregation began creating a plan for that vision shortly before the church closed in 2006.

With 80 regulars, it wasn’t a small congregation that closed Renton Lutheran. It was money.

“We were not a wealthy congregation,” Myers says. “We still had Sunday School; we had plenty of people in the pew. We just plain did not have the amount of money in our budget to support the congregation.”

The 1940s church was left in the wake of Renton’s developing downtown. That’s when Myers and her congregation realized they could most greatly benefit the downtown community by closing Renton Lutheran’s doors.

So Myers and her congregation began talking about how to create a community center. They sought input from others, including several of Renton’s other Lutheran churches, as well as the local Lutheran governing agency: Northwest Washington Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

“We had been a blue-collar congregation,” Myers says. “We didn’t have the skill set to make it happen.”

They may not have had the skills, but Myers and her congregation had the vision. They wanted their community center to be edgy — “not standard for a church.” And they wanted their center to provide services in the realms of community, education and housing.

Renton’s Compass Center will have all three components. Or it was going to, until Renton Technical College backed out as a tenant. The college no longer has the money to teach ESL classes at the center as planned.

An educational or retail tenant is still needed, but the building’s community and housing tenants remain. St. Matthew’s Lutheran Church will run Luther’s Table — a coffee shop and bakery by day and wine bar and pub by night. Compass Center will operate the veteran housing.

Compass Center, a Seattle-based, Lutheran nonprofit, is the Renton center’s driving force. The organization operates several shelters and housing centers in the Seattle area.

Renton’s central location and proximity to schools, shopping and recreational spots make it a natural choice for a Compass Center project, says director Rick Friedhoff.

“I definitely believe Renton is a good site for a veteran’s housing project,” he said.

Numbers support Friedhoff’s claim.

According to the 2007 American Community Survey, an estimated 163,000 veterans, active military and national guards or reserves live in King County. An estimated 12,000 of those live in the Renton area.

Designed by Bellevue firm Bayliss Architects, Renton’s Compass Center is estimated to cost $17.5 million. That money will come from a combination of county and state funds, permanent loans and low-income housing tax credits.

When completed in spring 2010, Compass Center – Regional Veterans Complex will sit on three parcels of land measuring nearly 60,000 square feet. The building will front South Second Street.

Veterans will live in affordable housing units on the top three stories. The bottom floor will be split between Luther’s Table and another tenant.

But before Renton’s Compass Center rises, Renton Lutheran Church must be demolished. The old brick building now hosts Bible study classes.

Still, Renton Lutheran Church will live on, having fulfilled its plans to give birth to a new community center.

Pastor Myers admires her congregation’s sacrifice.

“For having the guts to look at the community, at what it needed…”

St. Matthew’s pastor Kirby Unti is also an admirer. He says most churches simply close their doors when they die.

“To be able to die and realize in your death you’re going to birth a new beginning is pretty cool,” Unti says.

Compass Center – Regional Veterans Complex at a glance

• What: Three stories and 35,280 square feet of affordable veteran housing, one story and 8,500 square feet of retail. Half occupied by Luther’s Table coffee and wine bar, half awaiting a tenant.

• Size: 59,752 square feet, 16,700 square-foot footprint

• Estimated construction start date: May 2009

• Estimated construction end date: May 2010

• Address: 403, 419 S. Second St. and 205 Morris Ave. S.