By Russ Williams, Expansion Team Leader
The past few months have brought a successful conclusion to a few key items and continued
work toward completion of design work and groundbreaking for the new building.
The Metro Board of Zoning and Adjustments approved our variance and waiver
requests in March, which clears the way for approval of our building plan. That
approval allows our design team to finalize details of the new building and
site plan, and prepare construction documents for bidding.
The majority
of the building and site design work will be complete by the end of April, with
a little coordination and cleanup at the beginning of May Coincident with that,
our Civil Engineer is working on our site plan approval with Metro Louisville,
which is fairly straightforward since our variances and waivers are approved;
and All Church Sound is working on our audio, video, and lighting
specification
In May, the
Expansion Team and Architect will spend a significant amount of time reviewing
with governmental agencies to get approval of the design and plans. Immediately
following that review and approval we will go out for construction bids. The
construction bidding process will confirm our budget, which may lead to a short
period of design rework or value engineering; then we will apply for permits,
choose our contractor, and begin construction. If all goes according to our
current schedule we will break ground in July.
The Expansion
Team is currently obtaining and reviewing demolition quotes for the five
houses, and are targeting demolition of the five houses in _ early to mid-May
depending on the chosen contractor and his availability.
One
unexpected upside to the delay in our project is an across the board reduction
in project cost. The construction industry reporting agencies and recent
experience with Scott-Klausing's subcontractors indicates that lumber and
drywall costs are continuing to drop, steel prices are leveling off after a
sharp drop from last summer's price spike, labor costs have stabilized, and
copper costs are significantly down from last year. Building loan interest rates are down significantly from a year ago, although the
tightening of the credit industry may require us to provide more information
than we originally expected. All these factors should help bring our project
in on budget, and reduce the amount of long-term debt the new building will
incur.
The Expansion
Team and Leadership Team are still in discussions with the City of Woodlawn
Park regarding the site plan and access to and from the parking lot. The
current plan will not install the driveway connection to Ambridge
Circle. Depending on attendance and traffic flow along Westport Road, the
Church will consider a traffic control officer when needed to stop traffic
along Westport Road
before and after services to insure cars can enter and exit the parking lot safely.
In summary, the
Expansion Project is back on track after our value-engineering redesign last
summer and work with the City of Woodlawn Park last Fall. Our progress with
Louisville Metro government has gone well through the winter, and we believe we
are over the major hurdles in the design process. We need your prayers as we
complete the building design, go through the bidding process to choose a
contractor, obtain our permits, and work with banks to obtain our construction
loan.
If you have any
questions about the design or status of the project please contact a member of
the Expansion Team: Russ Williams, Mary Rivard, Carol Leigh, Scott Lingo,
Dennis Carson, or Danny Lira.
Thank you for
your prayers and support!
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