Stating the Not-So-Obvious
Understanding the Needs of Our Building – October 16th, 2011

In “Stating the Obvious” we sought to express that the vision of our church is much larger than a physical building. We exist to see the gospel of Jesus proclaimed, lives transformed, God glorified, and our city made a better place to be. We also sought to express that addressing the needs of our building is an essential component to providing a safe and hospitable space for the thousands that come through our doors every month.

In “Stating the ‘Not-so-obvious’” we want to bring you into some of the costs and needs that aren’t seen as easily. Here are a couple of examples.

Anyone who’s tried to walk up or down our stairs on a Sunday morning knows that we have a problem. So why haven’t we fixed it yet? Surely a new staircase isn’t that costly?

You’d be right – building stairs isn’t that costly. But it’s also not that simple. The problem is that once we apply for permits to begin that staircase, we open our entire building up to code enforcement.

The first parts of our building were built in the late 1800s, long before there were legal requirements for things like sprinklers, safety railings, or emergency exits. Since then we’ve been “grandfathered” into these codes, but in order to make the needed updates to our entry way we have to bring the whole place up to code. This means that the majority of our project costs are tied up in repairs you will never, ever see. For example, to build a staircase, we have to:
Completely overhaul our electrical system to meet present-day codes.
Completely overhaul our heating and cooling system (HVAC) to meet fire safety regulations.
Install fire sprinklers throughout the building.
Completely overhaul our plumbing system to support the required fire sprinklers.
Update our existing stairwell to meet current fire-rated standards.

Here’s another example of how many of the problems you see are “the tip of the iceberg”, so to speak. Have you ever attempted to flush a toilet or get a drink from a water fountain and found them “broken”? Actually, it’s not the fountain or the toilet that’s broken. It’s the rest of the plumbing in our building.

Or maybe you’ve sat through a service either sweating or shivering and thought we were just trying to save on the utilities bill. In fact, we’ve got it running full blast. It’s just that ⅔ of our heating comes from boilers that are over 50 years old. The other ⅓? It comes from more “modern” systems, but these are 10 years past their life expectancy and can’t be repaired any longer. Our only choice is to replace over 40 pieces of equipment. This is an enormous cost that you’ll never see.

In some ways, what needs to be done with our building is not unlike what we talk about needing to be done with us as a people. We’re not interested in seeing superficial fixes or facades in our own lives, and in the same way we don’t think it’s healthy to attempt to treat purely visible problems with our building without first addressing the underlying needs.

For more information about the project, go back to our Building page.