There were a number of campus projects that were completed over the summer. A number of others are scheduled to be completed between now and Christmas. I wanted to keep you all informed and bring you up to date on those.

Roofing (Gym and Church) Estimated Cost: $75,000 each. We currently have 4 bids in hand. Roofer should be chosen by end of September. Status: Work should be completed for both the church building and the gym before Thanksgiving.

Re-Do Stucco/Painting Outside of Church. Estimated Cost: $30,000. Concerns about cracks that we noticed in the outside walls of the church were the basis for this work. A contractor/consultant to whom we spoke said that the cracks were not serious and did not merit major wall reconstruction. Simple stucco work and painting would be sufficient. We currently have 1 bid in hand and are seeking 2 more bids by the end of September. Status: Contract should be chosen by Mid-October with work which should be completed before Thanksgiving.

Concrete Work – Entire Campus. Estimated Cost: $50,000. If you walk around the campus, you will notice cracks in the sidewalks, steps, masonry and flagstone. We wanted to get this done during the summer months. Unfortunately, with positive developments in the economy, all concrete contractors we contacted were focusing on larger contracts worth more money. Status: this project has been suspended until next summer.

Security System (Doors, Cameras and Training) Estimated Cost: $60,000. All cameras, software, door access keypads and panels, which have been installed in the Parish Center, church building and school, have been tested and are working well. Status: The final two security doors (front and back doors of rectory) will be installed by September 26. Final training on the system will be completed by September 26 as well.

Pew Staining. Estimated Costs: TBD. When we first started working on the parish facilities Master Plan, it was determined that no work had been done on pews and woodwork in the church in years. The ideal solution would have been to remove every pew at some time, strip/sand the pews down to the woodwork, repaint/re-stain and then reinstall the pews. This would have been a massive project taking weeks at a significant cost. Thus, it was decided that, with so many parish physical plant needs, funding would be best spent on higher-priority projects. Hence this project was intended to be a lower-cost, “stop gap” measure. The work that was eventually done on pews was substandard. We still have issues with pealing of varnish on the back of some pews and pealing in the crack area where the back of the pews meets the pew seat. We have worked with the painter up to now to get work up to a particular status.

Status: We are currently talking with 2 other painting companies to see if anything more or better can be done without spending an exorbitant amount of extra funds. We are looking to receive 2 estimates by middle of October before deciding how to proceed.

Raising Up and Repair of Portico. Estimated Cost: $50,000. Unforeseen complications in the installation of the new church air conditioning system required the contractor to build the AC unit higher on the church roof than anticipated. Hence, if one stands at a particular place in front of the church, a part of the AC unit can be seen. A number of parishioners have advocated raising the portico for a number of reasons:

It enhances the aesthetics of the church. It improves the sight-line of the church to cover the new air conditioning system (which can currently be seen). It ties in with necessary repairs to parapet area around front of the church. Parts of this area are experiencing crumbling and could actually represent a safety hazard to parishioners/visitors. The issue is funding. There is a desire to consider shifting additional funding to parish priorities such as a new Youth Room and Hagenbach Room (the most heavily used space on the campus). In addition, we need to consider the normal anticipated 20% loss of “non-paying” pledges from the Financial Campaign (up to $340,000). Status: the financial realities are preventing us from moving forward with this project at this time unless additional funding can be found.

Church Welcoming Desk and Moving Electronic Handicap – Accessible Door. Estimated Cost for Welcome Desk: $10,000. Estimated Cost for relocation of handicap-accessible door: $15,000. The original idea for this project was a discussion whether it was time to put a “Welcome Desk/Area” in the church lobby. This would function as a place where visitors and new parishioners can receive information, serve as a locus to meet people who wanted to “have a look at the parish”, be a place where parishioners could acquire any necessary parish paperwork that they might need and a sign-in place for families attending new “small group” family catechesis on Sundays. The problem is that the ideal location is directly in front of the bulletin board. This would then block anyone coming through the handicap-accessible door, thus necessitating relocation of that door and its electronic/mechanical fixtures to another door. Status: suspended due to increased complexity of this project and shifting of funding to other higher priority projects listed above.

This is the first of two reports to you – the Parish of St. Monica. Next week I shall complete this report by outlining what we’ve decided to do concerning the Youth Room, Hagenbach Room, First/Old School and school cafeteria.