For years, the Wilshire Theatre in Beverly Hills looked like a dilapidated relic on Wilshire Boulevard, just another old, rundown movie house that seemed destined for demolition.

But the theater is poised for a $20 million makeover by Temple of the Arts, a Jewish reform congregation that recently bought the art deco vaudeville house – after arranging financing from First Bank of Beverly Hills, one of the few banks in the country that has a unit that specializes in lending to religious groups.

The move is part of a small, but growing, trend in which churches, temples and mosques are buying up old supermarkets, theaters and strip malls, and they are turning to banks for much-needed capital.

Rabbi David Baron, of Temple of the Arts, spent three years negotiating with the Nederlander Organization, the parent of the Los Angeles-based concert group that owns the Pantages Theatre, to buy the theater.

“It was so timely that it was meant to be,” said Baron, sitting in a tiny office that he moved into last month in the Wilshire Theatre.

Temple of the Arts was able to obtain a commercial real estate loan for more than $5 million from Community First Financial Resources, a First Bank subsidiary in Lake Forest, Calif.

Though lending to a synagogue or church may seem like a fairly safe investment, many banks avoid it for fear they may have to repossess a property in the event of a default. Some banks even refer to religious lending as ‘leap of faith’ loans, because of the perceived risk that a church or temple’s cash flow is based on voluntary donations.

“It’s very rare for a church to default,” said Michelle Seukunian,cq a vice president and area manager at First Bank. “But if you lend to a hospital, a school or a church and they had to close, it would look very bad for the bank’s image.”

Community First is one of just a half-dozen banks nationwide that specialize in lending to churches, mosques and synagogues.

Therese DeGroot, senior vice president at Community First, said many banks don’t really understand the special needs of different religious groups, including the differences between churches and temples.

Temples typically require that members pay annual dues, while donations to Christian churches are usually voluntary, which can make it tough for a lender to determine how much money is coming in.

“We don’t want to overburden a congregation with too much debt, where they will have to cut back on ministry and outreach programs in order to service the debt,” she said.

Though Temple of the Arts had leased Wilshire Theatre for the past 13 years, primarily for high holy days, it had no previous building. That presented problems for securing a loan. DeGroot tweaked the bank’s lending model to allow Temple of the Arts a bit of leeway, since the synagogue planned to take over as property manager of the theater’s eight-story office tower and three ground floor retail stores.