Sprouting from the ground
by: George Yacus
You can’t help but notice the new Family Life Center sprouting up next to the main building near the parking lot. It is very exciting to watch the weekly progress being made, and many people in our congregation are creating their own vision of how we will use the new building to further God’s kingdom.
Our new facility will bring many new possibilities and hopefully encourage congregational growth, both numerically and spiritually.We continue to have a great working relationship with the Barnes Design Group (our architect) and Dow Construction Inc. (our builder). We are having regular meetings to monitor the progress and continue to iron out some of the problems and also make decisions that will bring us to completion. The trust company is issuing funds to the builder (thanks to the generosity of our own members who bought church bonds) and we have been using money from the building fund (thanks to our one-time donors and regular contributors). Your continued financial support to our building project is always welcome.
There are some non-construction-related expenses that we have had, including fairly sizeable fees for engineering work, required inspectors, initiation of the church bond, and legal work that officially incorporated our church. These were necessary building blocks for us to move forward, and they will serve us well and possibly even protect us in the future. We also had some additional unforeseen costs due to ground stability, cold weather concrete pouring, and obtaining an electrical contractor. As you have noticed, the weather has had a large impact on the construction process, but the project is moving on even with the rain, snow, and cold temperatures. We have saved a little money with the utility company as opposed to original estimates, and most of the installation costs for the alarm system are included in the original building contract.
There are some additional features that we needed to buy for the new building that make it functional for us to use. For example, most modern classrooms have media facilities, and we needed to add adequate electrical and signal feeds so each of the eight classrooms could be fully operational and self sufficient. We also needed to use a lighting plan that gave us full functionality for bright, medium, and dim lighting for various types of activities—whether the room was configured as one large hall or eight individual classrooms. We also recently made decisions concerning carpet type, ceiling tile, door color, wall color, trim color, tile color, and counter-top design. We will probably not please everyone’s preferences, but we believe that the final product will be reasonably attractive and useful. We also chose exterior lighting for the building.
There are a lot of things that we really would have liked to do but could not afford. There is no connector between the buildings. We will not have wall tiles in the bathrooms. We will not have motion-activated fixtures in the bathrooms. The kitchen will not have installed appliances or cabinets or countertops (we will hopefully be able to do this using the talents of our members). There will be no installed dividers until we can afford them later (a full set of room dividers is close to $100k). We have not bought any furniture (e.g., tables and chairs) or bought basic supplies for the kitchen. Over time we will hopefully get the funds we need to fully equip and operate the building like we want to.
There are new challenges we will face once the new building is completed. We will have additional charges each month to operate additional phone lines (for the alarm system), there will be significant heating and cooling costs, insurance costs will rise, and there will be a large new building to keep clean and perform maintenance on.
What are some things that you can do to facilitate the building and use of the Family Life Center? First, you can remain clear of the construction site and stay out of the building until we are officially allowed to enter. Second, you can consider donating time and talent once we take occupancy. There are several self-help projects (e.g., installing kitchen cabinets and counters) that we will be able to do on our own to save costs. Third, please consider making a weekly contribution to the building fund above and beyond the regular contribution. Some people are already doing this and it helps us to reach our project goals. We are encountering additional construction needs, and the building fund is the only source of funds to meet those needs above and beyond the bond money (which is going entirely to the original building contract). Fourth, we are hoping that there may be some special donations once the building is complete to help equip the building with dividers, appliances, and furniture. Please keep the Bayside Church in mind when you are doing your estate planning. The sooner that we can reach our financial goals, the sooner that the building will be complete and fully ready to use. Finally, we are looking for your good ideas on how to use the building, looking for your teaching talents to establish more classes to meet specialized spiritual needs, and also looking forward to your continued support of the project.
The next few weeks will bring more changes. The roof will be completely sheathed and shingled. There will be ditches dug out to the street to accommodate a new sewer line. We should see the brick exterior facing being installed soon. Once the ground is drier and more manageable, we will see the drive-thru concrete being poured and paving and curbing. Exterior windows and doors will be installed soon, and then there will be many weeks of interior drywall, heating and a/c, electrical and lighting, plumbing and plumbing fixtures, carpeting, painting, and so forth. The work is happening fast, and we may be in the building as early as the beginning of May. Once the building is complete, we hope to see an increase in available parking, more space to fellowship and teach and grow, and more members in the Bayside congregation. These are exciting times to be a member of the growing Bayside congregation.
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Click on picture to read full article
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