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All posts for the month January, 2014

BUDGETING

How many churches have you met with that have never spoken with their architect about their financial ability? How many churches have you met with that do not understand the difference between construction costs and project costs? Too many times I am faced with a committee that does not want to share their finances with me or for that matter has never even discussed their financial ability with the finance officer of their church. How is an architect supposed to design a feasible solution to meet their needs if no one knows how much money there will be to build with? Or for that matter Continue Reading

PHASING

How many churches have you seen that have started the construction of their facility without the financial resources in place to complete that facility. They will tell you, “the contractor is in the midst of building phase one of our facility”, and you find that what they are calling phase one is the foundation and hopefully the slab of the new building. Phase two is proposed as being the structural walls, then hopefully the roof of the new facility, and so on and so on…

This is not the proper way to phase construction of a building. This is the result of Continue Reading

SCHEMATIC DESIGN – MASTER PLANNING

How many times have you heard of a Lending Institute receiving a phone call from a church looking for funds for their newly designed facility that seats 1000 people in the sanctuary when their average attendance is less than 250? Or hear of a church that has spent a bequest to install an elevator only to find out a few years later that the only direction their property will allow a new education wing to be built is right through that elevator; Or that a church had a design build firm add on a wood frame education wing to their masonry and steel structure drastically limiting the ability for that church building to expand in the future without serious expense due to this reduction of building type; Or meet with a church looking to take the next step in facility expansion that requires a complete alteration or reconfiguration of portions of the building they just built a few years earlier.

Too many times I am called in after the fact, after, a church with good intentions has Continue Reading