Latest on the Building Project

I keep hoping I can report that we have our permit in hand but we’re still waiting. We all know that the Lord works in mysterious ways but it seems that the city of Boynton Beach does too. It looks like we will be unable to get started in time enough to finish the narthex expansion before Christmas. Sooo, in order to accommodate the holiday crowd, it seems best to divide it into two parts and get done what we can.

First we’ll do the paving and landscape needed, that CAN be done in just 4 to 6 weeks. The major disruption to traffic part, both for the church and the school, will last about a month. The landscape part will take a little longer but will be easier. Then, just after Christmas we’ll start the second half, the narthex itself.

An important part of this process will be working with everyone who will be affected to keep all this as painless as possible. Sam Mancuso and I met with some of the school staff, Rick Mouw (our GC) and the paving guy last week to get an idea how to help the school manage their pickup and drop-off traffic during construction. I also attended the school’s staff meeting Tuesday afternoon to explain, answer questions and reassure everyone that we can all work together to make this happen smoothly.

Still high on our list of concerns for this project is being “green”. That includes not just energy but Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. We will be using recycled asphalt for the paving and recycled concrete aggregate where possible to the maximum allowable by code. Also Jeff Nurge (Mr. Florida Friendly) is working with our landscaper to use as many Florida native, drought resistant plants as possible. That means less water for irrigation. We anticipate using a new power saving, long life LED light bulb for the majority of the narthex lighting and eventually re-lamping more of the church’s fixtures where appropriate.

The Tuesday morning Design Team meeting was long but interesting, Steve Placido of TSG Design met with us to talk about AV, acoustics and sound isolation. He will help us to keep the drum sounds from escaping Charles’ practice room and show us how Bill’s room can sound like the church so the choir rehearses true to their performance. One of his key philosophies is to make sure that we build smart and plan for future use. Sounds good…

As always, feel free to ask me or any of the vestry questions. If we can’t answer we’ll find out for you.

Peace
Ric Filer