CHARLOTTE, N.C., Nov. 15 (UPI) -- After more than 50 years in downtown Minneapolis, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association will move the headquarters of its international ministry to Charlotte, N.C., Graham's son, Franklin, announced on Thursday.
The ministry will purchase 63 acres north of Charlotte and build the new headquarters during the next three to five years, Franklin Graham, the association's chief executive, told business leaders at a luncheon. The site is along a stretch of highway the city named the Billy Graham Parkway in 1983.
"This move enables us to have all of our ministries and leadership located in North Carolina, and with plenty of room for future growth and development," Graham said.
Billy Graham, who founded the non-denominational non-profit association with a one-room office in Minneapolis in 1950, told ministry employees about the relocation during a staff conference earlier in the day.
"Minneapolis has been very good to us, but we have run out of room to grow. It has been a wonderful 50 years. Charlotte offers us the opportunity to have all of our ministries close together," Billy Graham said.
Graham, known as "America's Pastor," drew more than 200,000 people to his most recent crusade, in Fresno, Calif., Oct. 11-14. His next scheduled evangelistic meeting is to be held June 27-30, 2002, in Cincinnati.
Graham, 83, is a native of Charlotte and a lifelong resident of North Carolina. He and his wife, Ruth, live in Montreat, N.C. Franklin Graham, also an evangelist, is founder of Samaritan's Purse, an international Christian relief organization based in Boone, N.C.
The Graham organization has 632 full-time staff worldwide, including about 400 in Minneapolis. About 150 staff members are expected to move to Charlotte and another 300 are to be hired locally, officials said.
The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association reported $102.3 million in private contributions in 1999 in support of Graham's worldwide ministries.
