September 19, 2006

DIAMONDS in a NEW SETTING

Minutes of 9-19-06 Church and Hall meeting
Present: Blanco, Forbes, Goldsmith, Hemann, Kallin, Mollett, Newquist, Parks, Patera, Sinnott, Stover.
Opening prayer was psalm from John Michael Talbot CD.
Church now has seating for 288, 18 rows and 16 people per row. Brad’s preliminary sketch of new church would seat 368 people allowing 18 in/person and 302 people at 22 in/person
Preliminary sketch shows cruciform shape for new church, with seating in front of and to both sides of altar. Tentative placement of music ministry is in front of one of the sides. May put an aisle down the middle of that side, to delineate choir space. May add a few pews to back of each side and back of the church. This would decrease the overflow area, but that would be ok, because we would have more seating and less need for a large overflow area. Hearth room could have a window, so there would be a view of the altar. Should put a restroom in the hearth room. The hearth room will have many functions: meetings, bride’s dressing area, family gathering area before funerals, area for babies during church, etc.
Some respondents to the survey said we should renovate the current church instead of building a new one. Discussion of these two options. Problems with current church include: Side aisles are 42 inches wide, but code requires 44 inches; not handicapped accessible; bathrooms. Even if we could renovate to meet minimum safety standards, we have a moral obligation to provide a safe and accessible church.
Renovation is estimated to cost $1 million, and then we would still have an old church.
Goal is to build new church and hall together, not one first and then the other. One reason for this is that the buildings will be connected. If build just one, we would have to construct and tear down a wall between the two buildings, which would increase costs. Second, the buildings will share facilities. Current plan is to put the bathrooms and mechanicals in the church building. Could not do this, and build the hall first. Third, it would cost about 10% more if we had to pay the contractors to mobilize (bring in equipment, etc) twice. Fourth, building the hall first would delay the date we could start construction of the church, which would increase the overall cost. We can start construction if we have one-half the money in hand and a plan to raise the other half. If we build the hall as soon as we can, and pay for it, then we would have less money saved to reach our goal of saving one-half the money for a new church. Said another way, if we build both buildings at the same time, we can start when we have half the money. If we build the hall first, then the church, we cannot start the church until we have all the money for the hall plus half the money for the new church. Because the church is much more expensive than the hall, the savings from starting the hall early are less than the extra costs caused by delaying construction of the new church. Finally, even though the average survey score for the new church was 2.2 and the hall was 2.6, a majority of people in the survey ranked the hall and church equal in priority. Only some ranked the hall as a higher priority.
Reviewed rough sketches of church and hall. Can’t fix a place, on the lot, until we get the land survey. May need to use part of the parking lot that is west of the church.
Brad will work on getting a sketch for the church and hall, to use in fund raising, and a rough cost estimate. He also will look at vertical part of sketch, not just two dimensional.
A rule of thumb is that you need one parking spot for every 2.5 persons in seating capacity of church. For a 350 person church, this would require 140 parking spots. Need to count our current parking spots.
Next meeting Tuesday, September 26. Father closed meeting with prayer.