Houston - We have liftoff!

Wow!  A busy week for your Building Committee.

1. On Thursday night, at their bi-weekly meeting, the committee discussed and voted on a builder for the remodeling and expansion project.  The vote was a unanimous 7-0 for one of the builders.  After a few courtesy calls to inform all parties involved of our decision, we will reveal the name of our builder.
2. Our architectural firm, Barrett Studio, has engaged a landscaping expert and a civil engineer.  Members of the committee spent time with them on Tuesday, walked the property and brainstormed ideas.  We're very please with both of these additions to our team. Barrett will also engage an acoustician* to make sure that the acoustics in the new sanctuary are of the highest quality. (*Join a Fellowship committee... learn new words... increase your vocabulary.)
3. Members of the committee have also been meeting with a local realtor to generate ideas for our transition time.  During construction, we will need to move the services of the Fellowship office to another site for 6-10 months.  The realtor is looking for a site that is close, perhaps in downtown Lafayette.  The committee also is looking for a local site for Sunday services, School of the Spirit, and various other committee meetings during the transition time.

We're excited about the progress on our Fellowship project ... even though it sometimes seems to us like we're turtles slogging through molasses!  

Due Diligence

Due diligence:  

• The care that a reasonable person exercises to avoid harm to their property.  
• Research and analysis of a company in preparation for a business transaction.  
• Merriam-Webster.

Your Building Committee spent last Thursday's meeting exercising due diligence as we continue to try to obtain the best builder for our expansion/remodeling project.  We have spent many hours interviewing different companies, paring down the choices.  We are very close and thought that we would select our builder at the last meeting.  However, we had some questions for one of the builders, so we requested an additional interview with the on-site superintendent.  After the interview, we were not able to come to a unanimous vote as there were some additional questions regarding submitted bids, references, etc.  So, exercising due diligence, we will spend an additional 2 weeks researching these builders.  

We're very close to choosing our builder, but we must be 100% sure that we've chosen the correct one. 

We'll announce our choice as soon as we have finished our due diligence.

1. General: Measure of prudence, responsibility, and diligence that is expected from, and ordinarily exercised by, a reasonable and prudent person under the circumstances.
2. Business: Duty of a firm's directors and officers to act prudently in evaluating associated risks in all transactions.
3. Investing: Duty of the investor to gather necessary information on actual or potential risks involved in an investment.
4. Negotiating: Duty of each party to confirm each other's expectations and understandings, and to independently verify the abilities of the other to fulfill the conditions and requirements of the agreement.

Read more: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/due-diligence.html

1. General: Measure of prudence, responsibility, and diligence that is expected from, and ordinarily exercised by, a reasonable and prudent person under the circumstances.
2. Business: Duty of a firm's directors and officers to act prudently in evaluating associated risks in all transactions.
3. Investing: Duty of the investor to gather necessary information on actual or potential risks involved in an investment.
4. Negotiating: Duty of each party to confirm each other's expectations and understandings, and to independently verify the abilities of the other to fulfill the conditions and requirements of the agreement.

Read more: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/due-diligence.html

1. General: Measure of prudence, responsibility, and diligence that is expected from, and ordinarily exercised by, a reasonable and prudent person under the circumstances.
2. Business: Duty of a firm's directors and officers to act prudently in evaluating associated risks in all transactions.
3. Investing: Duty of the investor to gather necessary information on actual or potential risks involved in an investment.
4. Negotiating: Duty of each party to confirm each other's expectations and understandings, and to independently verify the abilities of the other to fulfill the conditions and requirements of the agreement.

Read more: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/due-diligence.html

New Additions to the "Important Sites to Visit" Menu Bar

Be sure and review the following items in the Important Sites to Visit Menu Bar:

• The Power Point Presentation that Larry and Jim used to present information about the building/remodeling project.

• Questions that were asked during the last Congregational Meetings and their answers.

Goal, Interviews, Collaboration, City of Lafayette, Schematic, Timeline!

Building Committee Update, November 4, 2017

Goal:  This past Thursday, Nov. 2, the Building Committee, the Board, and the Combined Capital Campaign Committee met to discuss progress, next steps, and specific motions to bring to the congregation at our Nov. 12 congregational meeting. Larry Sherwood presented the results of the Capital Campaign Feasibility Study which was very positive. The discussion that followed focused on the fundraising goal for our capital campaign. That goal will be announced at the Nov. 12 meeting.

Construction/Builder Interviews:  On Tuesday and Wednesday of this past week Jim Highsmith, David Burrous, and Kevin Muller interviewed the 3 builders who submitted bids for our project. The full committee will interview the two finalists next Wednesday. 

Collaborative Team:  We want a builder who can work with BVUUF and our architect during pre-construction (now) as well as construction. We think that having a collaborative team of Barrett Architects, a builder, and our congregation gives us the best approach for a successful project. We learned a lot from talking to the three firms. We explored similarities and differences in their cost estimates and project approach.

City of Lafayette:  The objective of the next phase of our project is to submit our Site Plan and Architecture Review documents to the city of Lafayette for approval. We need to have our overall designs reasonably complete for this submittal, so there is a substantial amount of engineering work (civil, mechanical, landscape, energy, etc.) that needs to be completed.

Schematic Design:  In addition, we will engage ministers, staff, and committees in another iteration of needs assessments to move from our current conceptual design to what the architects refer to as schematic design. Our goal would be to have the city’s approval by the time the capital campaign is completed so we could quickly move into the construction phase. You can see our current "guestimate" of a timeline from now until move in the sidebar list of information.

The Timeline! is located on the right side of your screen under the title Important Sites to Visit.  Click on: Timeline!.