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Do you have a prayer partner? Consider becoming a Fellowship Partner at Emmanuel. It's a one year commitment to pray for and support one other person in the church. We ask you to make one contact per month by phone, email, note or in person. Contact Pastor Kurt or David Carpenter at 485 5171 if you're interested in knowing more. |
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| Phase-I Project |
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Page 3 of 3 Update: 3/9/2008: AN OPEN FORUM ABOUT THE PROJECT was held on March 5 at 6:00 pm. About 100 people attended, and many questions were answered. Update: 2/6/2008: The presentation of the Project Team's proposal to the Board of Ministry went well. After discussion and answering of questions from the floor, the Board voted unanimously to accept our proposal to move forward based on Bid2 results and recommend the project to the congregation. The next step is to announce a special business meeting to occur by month end for the purposes of voting whether or not to approve the project and the financing that it will entail. The Project Team will be working to hold at least one informational forum for the congregation so that any questions can be addressed prior to the discussion and vote at the special business meeting. Update: 2/4/2008: The Project Team met again with the architect on Jan. 29th. The net result of the rebid was a savings of almost $125,000 from the lowest figures of Bid1. Unfortunately, that means the bids remain nearly twice as high as we anticipated. However, given that we were very clear about your disbelief of the Bid1 figure, the fact that the Bid2 results remain outside our expectation is an indication that costs truly must be much higher than we attempted to excalated from the estimates of 2 years ago. These bids are typically only good for 60 days. That gives us until March 22nd to move forward despite the cost, or... what? This will be our defining moment... after four years of work. Tomorrow night (Feb. 5) I will be making a presentation to the Board of Ministry recommending their support to explore financial options which will allow us sign contracts and begin this project, and... to borrow up to $500,000 by whatever arrangement can be made practical. If we receive the blessing of the Board of Ministry, then we will work toward informing the congregation and moving to a special business meeting where the final decision would/will be made to encumber the debt. I am confident that we can do this, despite the higher than expected debt requirement. Waiting longer is only going to make the costs go higher (as we've learned so recently). The "Joshua" in me says, "The financial giant is nothing to be feared if God be with us!" - or - What are the high financial walls of Jericho are no match for our God!" But in the end, it is God who must move His people to trust and do His Will. Will we go forard and make our facility improved for the future, or will we go on without change and continue patching our aging facility as we have for nearly 40 years? Please pray about that... urgently! Update (1/21/08): As potential candidates for Bidding Round 2 a list of 10 small and specialty general contractors, and 9 specialty sub-contractors was delivered to Panich and Noel on Nov. 1. The second bid solicitation was started, but not all from the list decided to participate when contacted by Panich and Noel. Therefore, Panich and Noel contacted additional contractors with whom they are familiar from their project base and identified several more general contractors and mechanical contractors who indicated a willingness to bid. Since these latter contractors didn't receive their materials until early Dec., a deadline of Jan. 15 was established to allow for the Christmas and New Years holidays and yet provide us bid information ahead of our annual business meeting. Then, just two days before the deadline, we learned that one contractor who had expressed interest in bidding never got his materials! So bids were received and the remaining contractor was given materials to review. After carefully studying the plans, and given the compressed timeline to develop a bid, that contrator then declined. So now bids will be opened on Jan. 22, and the Project Team will meet within a week to outline our plans for acting on these bids. Mike Noel reports that he was encouraged by those who now have agreed to participate in Round 2. Unfortunately he thinks the figures will still be higher than we anticipate. Assuming a financial plan for a manageable construction loan and future mortgage paymentws can be successfully determined, groundbreaking and construction would be anticipated sometime in the spring of 2008 and would continue through the summer. As we say HELLO! to 2008, we rejoice in your faithful giving toward "Building For A Better Tomorrow." And I look forward to taking the first steps toward the revitalization of our facility. Therefore we have requested an explanation from the general contractors, and will allow them to participate in a rebid, IF they so chose, along with additional small contractors who are yet to be identified. If YOU know, or have experience with any, reliable, high-quality construction general contractor crews whom you would recommend for the project, please let the church office know by the end of Oct. at the latest. Update Sept., 2007: All the initial general contractor bids were rejected out of hand because they all were extraordinarily high priced, totaling well over $1 million vs. an expectation of under $500 thousand. The bids received fall beyond the expected norms for construction in this area. For example, the net cost per square foot of finished interior space would have been well over $500/sq.ft. compared to a "norm" typically less than $150/sq.ft. Even though the new interior area we are creating is relatively small vs. the amount of exterior parking lot and site work, neither the architect nor we could account for why these bids were so exceedingly high. | |||||