Friends & Family: Building Committee Update

St. Francis' Church
Building Committee Update
December 7, 1997

A recent cartoon in the New Yorker pictured two dogs, well dressed, sitting on the sofa looking at a miniature doghouse on the coffee table. One dog, with a gesture of his hand, says what I imagine to be a matter-of-fact: well, "it's just the architect's model, but... I'm very excited." A year ago, those of us on the building committee were very excited about where we were. Now we find ourselves in the exciting position of explaining how we ended up in the doghouse, and how the doghouse is a rich place indeed.

It has been a very interesting journey, and I'd like to take you through the highlights, and show you why we can start to get excited again. I would like to do three things this morning: (1) bring you up to date on what has been done this year, (2) where we stand in the timeline, and (3) talk a little about what happens next.

The last time we met as a parish to talk about these things was at our annual meeting last January 26^th. At that meeting, with out intending to be prophetic at all, I said the following:

"1996 was a good year for St. Francis' Church. When I look at what we have done and who we have become, I believe firmly that we are a stronger, more healthy parish today. This, of course, in Biblical terms is usually a good indicator that we will have some significant and challenging trials and tribulations in 1997. In the Bible, a little wandering in the wilderness tends to follow the high points of freedom and baptism. So we will be watchful not to get ahead of ourselves."

This, of course, is exactly what happened: we wandered in the wilderness in 1997, and we learned more about where we are and who we are.

1. The History

Before I take you through the sequence of events, I'd like to take a minute and review how we got to where we were at the beginning of 1997, especially for our new members.

On this horizontal flip chart, from our parish meeting last fall, you can see some of the milestones we have been pursuing and what we have done to date. This process actually started almost four years ago, back in February, 1994 when Wally Frey's Planning Committee began a year of work. The outcome of this committee was announced at the January 1995 Annual Meeting. They recommended that we consolidate our parish activities on a single site. The task of deciding how to do this and where it was best done was given to the Facilities Committee, which began work in early 1995. The result of this committees' work was announced to the Parish in November of 1995, with the decision to build a new church on the Parish House property. It is noteworthy, as will become clear in a minute, that this committee began its work with the majority strongly in favor of building a new or expanded church on the old church site on Old Long Ridge Road. That is not were we ended up. The process of our journey in 1995 took us 180 degrees in the opposite direction, to a unanimous opinion that we needed to build a new church on the Parish House site on Logn Ridge Road. We learned that you don't always end up where you set out to go, and that God does indeed draw straight with crooked lines. We should have remembered this lesson well in 1997.

In March of 1996, we met as a parish to take the vote on proceeding with this project. That day proved to be an important milestone for this parish, with over 80% of you saying "Yes" to move forward and build a new church on Long Ridge Road.

Following the Parish Vote in March, the next committee to take the baton was the Architectural Search Committee, which began work in May of 1996. Their goal was to select the firm to design the new church. At first, we thought that the first architect we met was ideal and that we could end our search at the beginning. That's not how it ended up. The committee interviewed six architects, selected two finalists, concluding their work in September of 1996. Their recommendation to the Vestry-- which the Vestry approved-- was to hire Shope, Reno and Wharton of Greenwich to design the new church-- a rather late entry in the selection process.

During November of 1996, Allan Shope and Bernard Wharton led the parish through two "program" meetings, where we talked about our needs and wishes for a new church. These were lively and engaging meetings that were videotaped for parishioners who were not able to attend. The result of these meetings was a report of the program elements that Allan delivered to us early last December.

This brings us up to where we took a turn in the road, and began our wilderness journey at the beginning of this year. So what happened?

2. The Turn in the Road

During December and early January, Allan and Bernard worked on a design for the new church, which they scheduled to present to the building committee in mid January. I can tell you that these were the longest six weeks of the project. I got numerous calls and made numerous calls with questions about how things were going. The anticipation was palpable.

The start of this meeting on January 15^th was a high point for the building committee. Every seat was taken, and we were at their edges. What happened next was a shock. Not only was the design a disappointment, the estimated cost was $1.8 million dollars, twice the project's budget.

During the architectural search process, we heard a presentation that summarized the three factors in a building design project-- the architectural triangle, if you will-- as cost, quality and size. You could fix two of the points on this triangle, but not the third. We had high expectations for quality, and we thought we were clear about the seating capacity and budget. What Allan and Bernard did was give us everything we asked for in terms of size and quality. It was obvious that they viewed budget as the variable.

Needless to say, we sent them back to the drawing board. Following a meeting of the Finance committee in late January, during which we reviewed our financial forecasts for the project, we confirmed our budget ceiling of $900,000 and informed Allan. In early February, Allan met with the Building Committee and walked us through an exercise that concluded that the project could not be done for less than $1.3 million, still 45% over our budget. Allan told us that squeezing the size of the building further would end up with a church not much larger than our church on Old Long Ridge Road. Furthermore, he encouraged us to look at expanding the old church as a more realistic alternative to building a new one. In the words of Yogi Berra, this was like "deja vu all over again."

At the March 1 Vestry meeting, we informed the Vestry that we were at an impasse. I cannot adequately convey the depth of emotion and concern at that meeting. And yet there was a keen sense of care in that meeting and desire to move forward. We presented six alternatives to the Vestry, including killing the project, and replacing the architects. The Vestry decided that the Building Committee needed to pause and look at two of these options: (1) delaying the project for 3-4 years until we accumulated more capital, and (2) revisiting expanding the old church with a new design and zoning approach.

In my update to the parish in the Fall of 1996, I pointed out that each critical juncture of this project included the Vestry's review and approval, to ensure we are ready to take the next step, before proceeding. It was at this March meeting that the Vestry said "Stop!" The Vestry asked for a meeting with Allan and Bernard to review exactly how we got to this point, and why these issues were not raised earlier.

The Building Committee was then asked to draw up a list of questions about the two options and the project to-date, for which we wanted answers. Allan met with us, at a joint meeting of the Vestry and Building Committee, on March 18^th for a frank and open discussion of the issues. I think it is a fair statement to make that we were satisfied with most all of his answers and explanations. He was very convincing. One of the key issues was the assumptions we had made about what size building would be needed to meet the parish's needs. Allan made a credible case for his contention that we would need twice the building that the Old Long Ridge Congregational Church built, which was our original benchmark. Nevertheless, we felt this issue should have been raised earlier in the project, as well as any presumption about the elasticity of our budget. On April 3, Ann Moore and I sent a letter to the parish summarizing these events to date.

Following the March meeting with Allan, the Vestry formed a subcommittee led by Frank Baker to examine the feasibility of the old church expansion. This included a visit to the zoning board and studies of the wetlands and engineering feasibility. The results of these investigations were presented to the Vestry in May. The bottom line was that the old church expansion alternative was indeed feasible. So we were faced with two real alternatives, exactly as the Facilities Committee was in 1995.

At this point the Vestry requested that the Building Committee reconvene and examine the choices: (a) delay the new church on the Parish House site for 3-4 years, or (b) expand the old church on Old Long Ridge Road. So, in June the Building Committee began anew, with a follow-up meeting in July. The result of these meetings was a recommendation to the Vestry to spend additional funds to get a schematic design from SRW of the expanded old church so that we could all visualize what this option would entail. At its July meeting, the Vestry reviewed this recommendation and voted "no". Again, the Vestry exercised its oversight responsibility for this project. What the Vestry charged the committee to do instead was to get two outside opinions on the budget and assumptions we used for the new church. It was clear from this meeting that the Vestry was leaning toward the new church option.

On August 7, we sent a letter to the parish updating you on our progress. Included was a brief survey to get a broad sense toward which direction the parish was leaning. The result of this "straw" poll was that over 2/3 of the parish still favored building a new church on the parish house site, even if it meant waiting a few years. And there was significant concern expressed about altering the old church in any way.

3. A New Direction

So, at the end of the summer, we felt as if things were turning in a new direction, or at least an old direction with some new twists. In early September, the Executive Committee met with Rev. Charles Fulton, of the Episcopal Church Building Fund in New York. This meeting was a key turning point for us. Charles did two things for us. First, he annoyed the hell out of us, which predisposed us to proving he was wrong. Second, he proved to be right, which annoyed us more than in the first place.

It was precisely this type of under-the-finger-nails truth that had the ring of the biblical prophets. It's just that I was looking more for sackcloth and a voice crying in the wilderness than a business suit with articulate argument. There were three things that struck home in Charles message.

First, that we were unclear on the problem we were trying to solve. In fact, it was clear to Charles that our problem had changed over the past four years, and we were confused because we didn't recognize the change.

Second, Charles bluntly stated that we needed to embrace the diversity of our buildings as a celebration of the diversity of our ministry in our community. If we didn't-- if we tried to homogenize our parish on one site, with one building-- it was a sure fire recipe for decline. In short, the Parish House met some needs in our parish that the old church did not; and the old church met some needs that the Parish House did not. We needed both. We needed the "churches" of St. Francis.

Third, the Parish House is a blessing, not a curse. According to Charles, the Parish House problem was simply that it had not been cared for nor appreciated until the Canaan Ridge School did. Charles had other pithy comments, equally as valid and thought provoking, but these were the big three. And they turned us on our head. In short, we got the message, and the message was not to unify on one site. Building a new church could be many things, but it was not going to accomplish this.

In parallel to our wrestling with Rev. Fulton, another subcommittee, led by Joe Mygatt, looked at the cost and size assumptions that SRW used in their January design. To complete their study, they looked at church seating per person assumptions and got estimates from two contractors. The conclusion of their report was that while Allan probably designed too large a space for our needs, his cost assumptions were not inflated in the least-- if anything they may have been understated.

Based on the meeting with Rev. Fulton, the Executive Committee took on the challenge of restating the problem we are trying to solve, and the objectives we are trying to meet. The details of this report will be available in the Building Committee's report for the annual meeting. In short, the problem we are trying to solve is threefold:

1. The need for a dedicated worship place that is family, child and choir "friendly," as well as, liturgically centered,

2. The need for a larger sanctuary for special holidays and gatherings (e.g., weddings, funerals), for modest growth, and for welcoming new people, and

3. The desire to reach out to the community with more special programs (e.g., concerts, lectures, words & music events, etc.)

It was at this point that the Building Committee began to discuss a new alternative: expanding Assisi Hall into a dedicated worship space, rather than expanding the Old Church. The conclusions from our meeting with Rev. Fulton freed us to think about applying Allan's idea for the old church to the Parish House instead. And our assumption was that this would be less expensive than building a standalone new church.

We then spoke to Allan about this to get his reaction. The conclusion of this discussion is that SRW cannot see a solution for us here at the Parish House site without building a new church building, and they reluctantly indicated that we may find another solution with another architectural firm. So we are now embarking on a search for a new architect, using the list of semi-finalists we developed during last year's search.

At last month's Vestry meeting, we presented our report on the findings of our studies, and our new goals and objectives. And at our Building Committee meeting on December 3, we formed two subcommittees: one to select a new architect, and one to revise our building assumptions based on the study Joe Mygatt's group did and the fact that we will be maintaining two churches. We are hoping to have the results of these two efforts ready for the annual meeting at the end of January.

This is where we are today. As you can see, while we've been pausing in the wilderness, we've been very busy.

One footnote needs to be added here. While we have been exploring these new directions and rethinking our goals and objectives, the increased revenue from the new lease with the Canaan Ridge School continues to accrue. Each year, the Vestry has been moving a portion of the Canaan Ridge rent into a building fund account. With the addition of some noteworthy contributions from some parishioner, this account has grown to over $100,000 today, even after paying our architectural fees to date.

4. In Conclusion

So what does all this say to us today? I asked the Building Committee if this seemed like one big ironic circle. Their answer was an emphatic "No." They felt that we are in a new place today, not back where we started. We have learned more about ourselves and our needs as a Parish. In addition, we are in a much stronger position today, having accumulated more cash in our building fund. So we are yet again at a beginning, stronger and wiser, but also more humble and open to new possibilities.

What these events say to me is that we need to recognize the freedom in humility, the freedom to be open to hearing God's word in our personal history here at St. Francis' church. That in our sense of unstoppable momentum, we need to recall that we are building a place to pause and worship. That in our exhilaration of launching out into a new chapter at St. Francis', we need the humility to recognize that we are not the author. And that in our feeling of wandering in the wilderness, we must celebrate that in the end, as in the beginning, we are found.

One of the strong images I have of the cartoon strip peanuts, is Snoopy forever laying on top of his doghouse rather than sleeping in it. It was almost as if rest for this unflappable dog was only possible looking at the stars. We would do well to recall this image, remembering that we are not in the doghouse of a project that has lost its way, but rather pausing and looking heavenward.

-- Ed Happ
Warden