Pastor’s Pen: Updates on the Building Part 1
January 17, 2012
This pastor’s pen in far overdue. My apologies. For 2 and half years now we have been talking about the new building, its cost, its plans, its hoped uses, and its timetable. Last year, both the Building Committee and myself had hoped we would be beginning construction on the new building. We ran into one setback after another.
First we had to move the location of the building to the back of the property because of problems we would have had with both sewage and storm drainage. After getting the building site changed, we did the core samples and determined the type of foundation we needed. This was step in the right direction. Then our initial plans as far as how to handle the drainage and sewage were incompatible with Missouri Department of Natural Resources, which again, sent us back to the drawing board. In the meantime, we got our architectural drawings and started work with the Diocese for approval. The diocese sent the drawings back, citing their concern that no electrical or plumbing schematics accompanied the drawings, which was problematic on a few levels in the bidding process. This meant having to find engineers to draw up these schematics. We have now got bids for this.
As you might well imagine, the cost kept going up. Initial bids came in from the mid 600,000 to the mid 800,000 range (the lack of electrical/plumbing schematics account for the wide difference in quotes). The electrical/plumbing schematics will come in at around $37,500. Once those are done, we send them back to the bidders to rebid their initial bids for the new building. This will put the building, as is, up to around the $850,000-$900,000 price arena. This does not include the price of the sewage/storm drain off nor does it include pricing in the cost of a new parking lot as the current south parking lot, already in bad shape, will be torn apart by the construction vehicles.
Then the question of financing came into play. Between what the parish has in Forward in Faith funds and the monies collected by St. Clement Charities Inc., we have roughly $400,000 on hand. These monies were given with the specific purpose of a new building and cannot be used for any other purpose. We cannot re-appropriate the monies for other purposes. Hence, we are building something soon and very soon. The diocese will only allow us to borrow as much as we currently have. So we are talking about a maximum total of around $800,000 as of right now. As total costs associated with the building are looking like they will stretch into the 1.0-1.1 Million arena, we have decisions to make. I will give possible options.
OPTION A: Plan to go with the building as is, try to raise $150,000 and finance the remaining $550,000. I will be honest, this one makes me nervous. While it will allow us to finance the building as is and address the other issues associated with the building, it will also mean financing over a half a million in debt. While the diocese would loan us the money at the best possible rates, it means adding the cost of financing to the project overall. On the upside, we get the building we want.
OPTION B: We downsize. We either go with just a gym, small kitchen for concessions, and bathrooms. Or we do a parish hall with meeting rooms, kitchen and bathrooms, offices, and possibly an Early Learning Center. We can do it in such a way that if we wanted to start with one and leave open the addition of the other as we collect funds. The plus with the gym first is that we have a place for our students to play in inclement weather, we have a spot for youth activities, we can host tournaments (which bring in income), and we could use the building for smaller parish events. The downside is that Early Learning Center is completely off the table, we lose the parish meeting rooms in a parish where meeting space is at a premium, we have a building narrow in focus, and we cannot hosts retreats and events in it. To go with the Parish Center first: the upside is that we would have the meeting space we need, the ELC becomes a distinct possibility, we could have larger parish functions in it, we would be widening the use of the building in many respects. The downsize is that while there would be a large open room for the kids to play in during inclement weather, we will lose the capability for basketball/basketball tournaments (the height of the gym is a cost issue). Certainly neither of these list give a full set of consequences for the choices made, but I think I hit the high points.
Inevitably, some will ask why we need a parish hall when we have the K of C hall. First, the K of C hall is not parish property which we can use as we deem to see fit. The Knights have been most gracious is hosting events free of charge. However, there have been multiple scheduling conflicts which narrow when we can use it and as the Knights have not been charging us for use of their building, I am sure there were more than a few occasions in which they lost paying customers because we had already booked the hall. Regardless of what we build, the larger fundraisers would probably stay there (Prime Rib Dinner, Fall Supper), Also, since the new building will be on the grounds of this parish and its school, the facility would be a dry facility, thus not horribly appropriate to wedding receptions and such. In short, a new building will not be in competition with the Knights. It gives the them opportunity to rent to paying customers and gives us much more flexibility in scheduling meetings, fundraisers, and socials. I will note that the Knights have not once complained to me about parish use of their facilities and I am deeply thankful for their generosity.
While I know that we met last Thursday to make these decisions (the Building Committee, Parish Council, Finance Committee, School Board and anyone else that showed), I will remark on the outcome of that meeting in next week’s pastor pen, I wanted to explain what we faced going into that meeting and to fill you in as to why things are moving at the pace they are. It has not been a result of neglect. While I have done many renovation projects as a pastor, this is my first foray into new construction, thus I take the blame for most of the hold-ups and lack of communication. This has been a learning process for me as well. We are building something this year. We must. We cannot use the $400,000 for anything else. I will be posting this pastor’s pen through face book and my blog (ramblingsofacountrypastor. blogspot.com) to give as many parishioners as I can the time to see this column before the meeting on the 19th. I cannot encourage them enough to attend the meeting in the School basement at 7PM.
Finally, to all those who think everything is fine as is and we don’t need anything: we are curtailed in what we can do in this parish because of lack of facilities. The parish is more than just a place where you can come to Mass; it is a place where the full mission of the Church to evangelize, educate, and build up the Body of Christ is to happen. We have lost parishioners to churches that do have the programs and facilities. We can do so much good with these facilities. It is about where we want to go into the future as a parish.