Bahá’í members renovating and refilling historic Church Street center

The Bahá’í center in Eastside Costa Mesa is celebrating its one-year anniversary in town, and leaders there say more plans are in the works to spruce up their facility.

The center, at 1950 Church St., is one of two in Orange County. The monotheistic religious group — which promotes the unity of humanity, religions, science and universal peace — purchased it in December 2014 for $1 million, below the $1.4 million asking price advertised earlier that summer.

Since then, Bahá’í members, all volunteers, have been putting significant work and dollars into the former Christian church that both gave Church Street its name and is one of Costa Mesa’s historic buildings, having been built in 1928.

They remodeled the kitchen, completed electrical repairs and upgraded bathrooms, among other improvements.

“We bought the center, you could tell it hadn’t been used in a long time,” said Tom Fillmore, one of Costa Mesa’s nine elected Bahá’í community assembly members.

They’re still looking to add heating and air conditioning, as well as upgrade the street front signage and install audio, lighting and video systems. The center is hoping to have much of the work completed by mid-February.

The nearly quarter-acre property where Church meets Walnut Street had been the longtime home of the Costa Mesa Community of Christ, which moved out following dwindling membership numbers.

The property is quite busy now, between the youth camps, children’s classes, devotional gatherings — even a climate change seminar.

Nearly 800 are in the cluster that calls Costa Mesa’s Bahá’í center their home, with an average of around 500 people coming there each week. Members are primarily from Costa Mesa, Newport Beach, Irvine, Huntington Beach, Fountain Valley, Santa Ana, Tustin and Orange.

“We have a very busy schedule,” Fillmore said.