Dear UUs,
I would like to thank everyone who came to the Congregational Meeting last Sunday. Planning for a new building is a very serious commitment and the high turnout was gratifying. I would especially like to thank you for your thoughtful and probing questions. We all have questions and anxieties, as well as hopes and dreams, about our future new home. I firmly believe that it is best to bring these questions and anxieties out into the open for discussion at every opportunity. I will do my best to explore and hopefully answer any new building questions you bring to me.
Lynn Wysocki-Smith brought up the issue of why we would construct a new building instead of refurbishing our existing one. The Congregation decided on this course back in September, 2008, so it’s a good idea to revisit that decision, both to remind members why we made this decision and to provide this background information to those who were not around back then.
The decision to build new was the conclusion and recommendation of the Building Our Futures Task Force. The BOFTF studied this question at the request of the Board and Congregation during 2007 and 2008. They arranged for a thorough study of our existing building to be done by architectural firm Conron and Woods and for various code and life-safety inspections to be performed. The final report from these efforts can be downloaded from our church web site as follows:
- Log onto the [members only] area,
- Click on the [Document Archives] on left side menu,
- Look at the files under [Long-Range Plans:] drop-down menu,
- Look for the files under [200809-BOFTF],
- Click on [Unitarian_Building_Report.pdf (1.9MB)], for the main report file,
- Click on the [Go] button to download this file to your computer,
- Do the same for any of the appendices that interest you.
I recommend you look at the main report file as well as Appendix A: Fire Marshal Report, Appendix B: Code Analysis, Appendix C: M & E Engineering General Report, and Appendix G: Lockwood Construction Letter. There is a lot of important information in this study that we all need to be aware of.
I also want to thank Lewis Muir for correcting a mistake I made during the meeting and Steve Tenbrink for having the correct answer. Basically, Conron and Woods determined that we require ~15,000 square feet to meet our current program needs. Bob Lockwood, a General Contractor with extensive experience in Los Alamos, estimated that either new construction or doing a remodel/addition to our existing building would cost about the same, i.e., ~$3,750k. Conron and Woods’ more complete estimate (including taxes, contingency, professional fees and miscellaneous costs) provided a preliminary project cost estimate of ~$4,933k for new construction and ~$4,943k for the remodel/addition option.
A quick update on where we now stand:
- I can now report that the Building Plans Committee is complete:
- Gordon Keating and Dale Arnink – co-chairs
- George Hrbek, Kathy Gursky, Kimberly Petersen and Melissa Bartlett – members.
- The Mullen Heller contract has been reviewed and signed.
- Meeting times with Mary Gleason (our UUA Consultant) are filling up fast. Please let me know if you would like to talk with Mary while she is here on Feb. 12th and 13th.
Again, my sincere thanks to the Congregation and the Board for your support of this project and to the many individuals who are working hard on our behalf to move this work forward.
Rick Bolton, BPSC Chair
