Away We Go!

Wow! 

Sunday's Congregational Meeting was incredible.  Now the Building Committee has to make it happen. We're excited!

Milo Construction was contacted on Monday regarding the results of Sunday's Congregational meeting.  They are also excited about moving forward with our project.  They'll soon be moving a couple of storage containers onto the property to house some of their supplies in anticipation of finalizing a contract in mid-January.  This is really going to happen!

The architect submitted the plans to the City of Lafayette.  There was only one question about the plan, but it was a simple one.  It looks like the permit won't be an issue.

Timing continues to be powerful driving force for our project.  It's like we're running 5 different timelines right now to incorporate the contractor's needs, the Board needs, the final bid, the approved bank loan, the final total budget, the revised pledge income, etc.  Remember the circus act where the clown tried to keep the spinning plates from falling off the sticks?  That's us.  But, it's an exciting time!

We requested a draft contract from Milo without final amounts so that we could have our internal and external legal reviews well underway.  We're always trying to get ahead of our timelines.

The Building Committee will meet again this week and we will continue to comb through the project contract to look for ways to save the Fellowship money, without touching the kitchen! 

Here we go!  Hang on!

Requesting a Second Bid

Dear Friends:

Last Thursday morning, at the Fellowship,  Jim, Larry Arp, and David met with our architect Rich,  several people from another construction company and several potential sub-contractors.  We did this because we have asked another construction company  to submit a bid for our project.

The CEO of the construction company was there and a half dozen or so potential sub-contractors showed up to walk the property, asked a lot of questions and "walked thru" the drawings.

Jim & I were impressed with the tenor of the conversations. In several areas the CEO had some good alternative solutions to offer regarding remodeling and construction.

So, we won’t have a bid for a couple of more weeks but remain cautiously optimistic regarding the interactions with this construction company.  They seem to be very good communicators.

Q and A from the October 14th Listening Session: click on FAC-->

You'll find a list of many of the questions and answers from the October 14th Listening Session in FAC (Frequently Asked Questions) on the right side of this screen.-->

Two Meetings on Monday Morning with Contractors

Hi All,
 
Jim Highsmith and David Burrous managed to schedule two meetings in one trip to Boulder on Monday morning, although it looked for a while like we might miss both. There was a train blocking 55^th street!  We finally figured out there was a back way to get where we were going and proceeded on our way, arriving on 20 minutes late.
A traffic cop, to let folks know that the train had been sitting there since 6 am, might not have gone amiss.   

But what a good problem solving opportunity for us!

First we met with representatives of Milo Construction. We had a positive discussion with them. They are still enthusiastic about working with us and will get busy communicating with their subs and putting their bid packages together today. They should have a bid to us in 3-4 weeks. The best summation of the meeting

We remain cautiously optimistic.

Second, we met with Faurot Construction. We had a cordial, honest, and straightforward discussion with them.  We started by saying that the possible cuts they had proposed went too far and that we needed to step back and consider those cuts, the financing, etc. We described our transition plans that we had made and executed, and said that even a few weeks’ notice from them would have saved us time, money, and headaches. We informed them that we would seek another bid from another construction company for comparison with theirs. 

We shook hands all around as we left.

Not much concrete information yet, but we will have better figures in a few weeks.