St Paul's Presbyterian Church's 93-year-old hall and old manse building on Wanganui's Guyton St are going to be torn down to make way for more modern facilities later this year.
The project will cost $2 million and take between eight and 10 months to complete.
St Paul's Church board of managers chairperson
Mark Hanton said the current buildings were no longer viable and were costing too much to maintain.
"The new building will be physically smaller and will join to the church, but it will still have a lot of the idioms from the church in it," he said.
Mr Hanton said all the current tenants, like the Citizens Advice Bureau, would be out by Anzac Day and the first phase, demolishing the old buildings, should begin a month later.
"We have about 30 groups that use the hall and they will benefit from the new building," he said.
Citizens Advice Bureau chairperson Lew Dodds said although they had been in the building for 30 years, the new building would make it easier for customers and staff. "We got to design our section of the development so it will be purpose built.
"There has been a lot of hard work put in for the temporary move, but I'm excited for when we come back into the new building," he said.
Mr Dodds said the bureau would try to make the shift as seamless as possible.
"We get on average 5000 to 6000 inquiries a year so we will try to keep everything smooth over the interim," he said.
The Citizens Advice Bureau will be located on the first floor of the Community House from today and it will be there until construction finishes.
The Samaritans, who will also moved temporarily, were looking forward to their return.
Samaritans head director Ray McKinnon said she was very excited by the move but there would be no interruption to their service.
The BSM Group Architects are involved with the design and administration of the new buildings.
