Building Update - April 20, 2018

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Finally, we are truly making progress. In fact, the builder informed us yesterday that we are about two days ahead of schedule in getting the pad site ready for the concrete. After all the delays, it is good to hear the words “ahead of schedule.” Of course, that must be put into the context of starting two months late!

Yesterday, April 19, we held our weekly meeting with Highland Builders and our project manager from CBRE. Mostly this was to update us on the progress since our last meeting, on April 12. Most of the work this week was underground. In order to connect up with the sewer and water, we have to dig a wide trench from the southern edge of the property to the building site. This is roughly 400 feet. Most of this work was accomplished in the past few days, but there is still a ways to go. The trench has been dug from the corner of the frontage road on the south side, across the dry pond area, and now only the short distance to the building itself remains. All of this must be completed before any concrete can be poured.

Much of our meeting was spent discussing what our sign out front will look like. Even though we are several months away from the time a sign will be constructed, we have to know its location and size now. It will be much less expensive if we have a design and location scoped out before they finish pouring all the concrete. That will make it possible for us to pour the base for the sign at the same time. As far as location, we are planning to erect the sign at the major entrance on the south side, which will line up with Gateway, the street that runs perpendicular into Medical Center Drive.

As far as the design, we are looking at something simple that will have the Church logo (name) and the address (3701 Medical Center Drive). We must decide if we want the sign to be parallel to Medical Center Drive or perpendicular to this main street. Both designs have their pluses and minuses. We have to ask a basic question: Do we want the sign to be visible primarily to those coming down Gateway or those driving down Medical Center Drive? Another possibility is to make the sign triangular, so that it could be seen from all directions. These are some of the decisions we must make over the next few weeks.

One of our office staff, Kelly Cunningham, took some video footage of the pad site using our drone and superimposed the actual office layout, with the offices, conference rooms, studio, lobby, classrooms, etc. Check out this video, and you can see how the office will actually look as far as layout. When it is completed, we will have room for future growth, with six empty offices and space for cubicles inside an open office area. Hopefully, we have covered all the bases. We will have a small conference room, for meetings of 12 or fewer people, and a large conference room that will accommodate the entire staff (23 currently).

Since most of the work is taking place underground, you won’t see a lot of change in appearance. The dirt work for the pad site has been mostly completed, and in the next two weeks the plumbers and electricians will come in to do their work of laying pipes and wires underneath and inside the foundation. At that point, we have to make sure everything is set and that we have identified all the floor outlets and all the plumbing outlets, because once the concrete is poured, we won’t be able to make changes!

The builder also let us know that on Monday, April 30, we will pour the first concrete. This will be for the piers that will support the foundation. They must be drilled and poured before the foundation can be set. It is predicted to rain over the weekend, but hopefully this important step will not be delayed.

We also discussed with the builder about changing our meeting to every two weeks instead of every week. If that is the case (we will decide next week), then I will also plan to post an update every two weeks instead of every week.

Thanks for your support for this project. Keep watching this page on our website! Once the building is completed, we should have a great tool to further the work of the Church! We are truly excited to see the progress each week!