Celebrity hotspot Vous Church opens Miami Gardens sanctuary

Vous Church, a celebrity hotspot led by the pastor who officiated Kanye West and Kim Kardashian’s 2014 wedding, expanded to Miami Gardens. 

Vous bought the 100,000-square-foot sanctuary at 17801 Northwest Second Avenue for $12 million from Trinity Church, according to records. 

The buyer assumed a mortgage from the seller with a $9.6 million balance maturing in 2041. The loan has a floating interest rate that’s now 5.5 percent and is scheduled for a review in November of next year, records show. Springfield, Missouri-based nonprofit Assemblies of God Loan Fund, an affiliate of AGFinancial, is the lender. 

Completed in 2004, the two-story church sits on nearly 9 acres, according to records. 

Vous Church, founded and led by husband-and-wife pastors Rich Wilkerson Jr. and DawnCheré Wilkerson, started as a youth ministry called The Rendezvous at Trinity Church. Wilkerson Jr.’s parents, Robyn and Rich Wilkerson Sr., lead the Miami-based Trinity megachurch. Vous, shortened from Rendezvous, officially spun off from Trinity in 2015. 

Rich Wilkerson Jr. and DawnCheré Wilkerson have carved out a celebrity image for themselves, and Vous is part of a growing bevy of Christian churches frequented by Hollywood stars. 

The short-lived “Rich in Faith” reality TV show on Oxygen chronicled the Wilkersons in 2015 and 2016. The pair also has seized on social media to grow their popularity, with over 1.3 million Instagram followers between them. Vous has 285,000 Instagram followers. 

In 2014, Rich Wilkerson Jr. officiated Kanye West and Kim Kardashian’s wedding in Italy. Aside from West and Kardashian, celebrities who have attended Vous include Kourtney Kardashian, Selena Gomez and Justin Bieber, according to crowdsourced website Church Clarity and lifestyle website Jetsetty. 

In a Dec. 3 video update, Vous announced it’s expanding to the Miami Gardens sanctuary this month and Trinity church will renovate and move into its original sanctuary in North Miami. Records show Trinity owns the church at 655 Northwest 125th Street in North Miami. 

Vous’ other outposts are at 6767 Sunset Drive in South Miami, as well as 6101 Northwest Second Avenue and 77 Northeast 40th Street in Miami, according to its website. 

South Florida churches have traded at a healthy pace in recent years, though mostly as development sites. 

In Fort Lauderdale, Arnaud Karsenti’s 13th Floor Investments is developing 34 single-family homes on the former home of the First Church of the Nazarene at 2300 Southwest 15th Avenue. 13th Floor and the Ardid family’s Key International want to develop an 80-story condo tower on a portion of the First Miami Presbyterian Church lot at 609 Brickell Avenue. The developers have the development site under contract for an undisclosed price, and the church would remain on the property.