Building Update - February 2, 2018

We held our weekly meeting with Highland Builders on Thursday, Feb. 1. Our schedule calls for a meeting every Thursday at 8:30 a.m. on the property. This Thursday, Britton Taylor, Clyde Kilough and William Beech attended the meeting with Highland, along with our project manager from CBRE. I could not attend the meeting since I was teaching a class at Foundation Institute. It seems that we are still in the pattern of “hurry up and wait.” We hurried to get to the ground breaking at the end of January, and now we are in a holding pattern until the city releases the final permit that will allow us to begin excavation and to pour the foundation for the building. Erosion fencing, fencing for the trees and a construction trailer are all on site. Above is a picture of the property with the recently placed construction trailer.

Because of the delays from the city and also our request that no work be done on the Sabbath or any of the holy days, which will add a month to the project (7 months x 4 Sabbaths plus 5 holy days = 33 days), the date for completion is now estimated to be in the October-November range rather than the August-September range we had hoped for. Our contract allows for 200 work days before the contractor begins paying a daily penalty, but our hope is that it will be less. Since we aren’t starting until February, 200 days will take us into November. We are hopeful that this can be shaved back to early or mid-October. This would put us moving in right after the Feast, which will actually be a good time for us. Right before the Feast would be difficult, but after the Feast should be okay.

This wasn’t the news we had hoped for, but it is the news we received this morning. We are anxious to see the building completed, and we will continue to update you each week, even though some weeks there will be little to report. Please continue to pray for the success of this project. We believe that when we are finished we will have a quality and effective tool to further the work of preaching the gospel and caring for the brethren that we can use for many years into the future. I pray every day for Christ to return, but we all know that the timing for that return is out of our hands. In the meantime, we plan to do our part to further the mission of the Church. We want to be a servant “whom his master, when he comes, will find so doing” (Matthew 24:46).

Until next week,

Jim Franks