Classroom and Discipleship Questions

1. Classrooms vs. worship space vs. parking? How do we balance these?
   Chap discussed that the consultants discussed these in detail with the team. We are very space limited since we are land-locked in a city at this point. So we have to do the best we have with available space.



2. How many classrooms are we short?
   Depends. Right now we are just working with what we have which may mean we actually have less classes to make our space work. When we get more space, we may very well see additional Sunday school classes once the space permits it. Also, it was raised that the classrooms are actively used all through the week, and this heavily taxes our campus currently.



3. How many classrooms are we adding?
   We are adding 12 net. We loose 9 due to trailer loss and FH1 loss, but we gain 21 new classrooms. [Current total is 31 including all buildings and trailer…and the new total will be 43]



4. Is FH2 unchanged based on the preliminary plan?
   Yes



5. The CLC hallway modifications make the classrooms smaller. Are they functional as modified?
   They will be functional as small, intimate classrooms, or perhaps as offices or storage. This will be determined in design details down the road.



6. I see the preschool rooms on the first floor of the Discipleship Center. Are they just for preschool?
   No. The rooms are primarily for use by Family Ministries which includes preschool, but we need to use all of our space as flexibly as possible. So other groups could use these spaces with some rules. The key here is that certain spaces may be primarily used by one group or ministry. These spaces were built for these groups, and these groups will generally control the space and define whether other groups can use it. So during weekday evenings the preschool rooms could be used by other groups potentially. This applies to preschool rooms, as well as any of the other spaces in our facility.



7. Can we put some showers on the first floor of the Discipleship Center?
   No. The children are required to be on the ground floor, so adding mission space on the first floor will cause some logistics issues with the preschool and family ministries.

Finance Questions

1. It was noted that we are raising $6.5 million in 5 years with a 6 year payout. How are we going to do this?
   There was discussion about the Finance Committee’s work in setting up models to allow this to work. However, it was clearly stated by Jeff Babcock that the plan may need to be adjusted if we are not meeting our giving goals during the construction period. It will be decided by the Phase 3 team on how to proceed if we receive lower than expected funding.



2. Are furnishings covered in the current budget projections?
   Yes, at least it can. The extent varies with our actual construction costs.



3. How much did “God’s Far Purpose” raise in 3 years?
   ~$900 K was given and $1.6 M was pledged. Of that we have about $630 K remaining to use toward the new plans.



4. What is the current amount of our long term debt?
   $1.4 million primarily related to debt from the building of the CLC.



5. Is the $600,000 capital cash on hand from God’s Far Purpose?
   Yes.



6. How many family units do we expect to pledge and participate?
   About 900 units, 415 pledge now.



7. If someone pledges an amount, do we have any plans to encourage people to pay over time on a regular payment basis (perhaps quarterly) to give us a consistent money flow?
   Good idea. Perhaps we should add an option to give in this way. The current plan focuses on having an initial 3 year pledge with a follow-up 2-year pledge after the 3 years.



8. Have we captured lessons learned from our earlier not-so-successful capital fundraising campaign?
   Yes. We reviewed the last process, interviewed candidates for consultant to assist with the effort, and selected Pat Luna. She has a proven track record, and matched this congregation.



9. Is there a built-in buffer for cost contingency?
   Yes. There is a $600,000 margin for over-run.



10. Is the campaign consultant fee “flat”?
    Yes. According to the fundraiser’s code of ethics, performance-based fees are not allowed.



11. Do we really need to hire a fundraising consultant? What is the cost and does it include both fundraising campaigns? What do we really get for $72,000?
    Yes, we think so. The amount we need to raise greatly exceeds our normal pledging, and is on top of that. We think that experience from approaching it successfully increases probability of success. The consultant needs to be the right one, and that is why we have been so careful in our selection process.

    The consultant is going to cost $72K for, and she will be assisting us for the first round of the fund raising campaign. In addition she will lay the plans for the second call for fund raising that occurs in 3 years, but she will not be present during that time.




12. Is the consultant fee turnkey, or a one-time effort?
    The consultant will be here for the first pledging call, with a plan left with us for conducting the second pledging call.



13. How did we choose the consultant and what is their accountability?
    The campus design team and others in the staff and congregation had references that we used. These were prayerfully considered at various times to determine which companies would be interviewed. We had an interviewing process attended by staff, the Campus Design Team, along with others such as some of our trustees, Finance Committee, and Administrative Council. We had much prayerful consideration in finalizing the decision to move forward with Pat Luna.

    Pat is an outstanding and spiritual person, who sees herself as a spiritual leader. She is not money focused, but instead she is God centered and focused on the hearts of those she serves. If our hearts are committed to God, and we the congregation believe this is his work, then our financial backing will follow. Pat will be preaching from time to time as well as leading us in our financial goals for the new campus work. It will hopefully be a time of spiritual growth for all of us.




14. Should we expect to see the assumptions for our financial planning, such as growth in attendance and giving, and long-term debt after the project?
    Assumptions will be shared. There is no assumed growth in giving amount. Debt really depends on the amount pledged/given. We will borrow money to get the Discipleship Center project started while funds are being raised. The 6-year pledge assumption is important for keeping us in the black. The more pledges that are made, the less that will have to be borrowed. The plan shows that we will never be more than $2.2M in debt according to the 6-year plan with its assumptions.



15. What is the plan sensitivity to the success for receipt of pledges for the first call for pledges? If the first phase of fund raising only raises 1-2 million, does that derail the entire plan?
    We will adjust the project, if necessary, to what we can afford based on pledges and financing plans.



16. This commendable, long-term design may need to be married with long-term capital funding, versus a one-time campaign. A 20-year utilization should match a 20-year financing plan.
    This is a good point. We will ensure that the finance committee gives that consideration.



17. Almost all of the square footage is under construction before the 2nd pledge call. Is this correct? Why is this?
    Most of the square footage will be under construction at the 2nd pledge call, but it will not all be finished. We will still be funding the construction effort. Although we will be beginning to use our new facilities in service of God, we will still need the congregation’s commitment to finish the construction.



18. Isn’t financing this going to be difficult given our past experience with God’s Far Purpose? How will this work?
    We need to proceed with fear and joy as stated by Pastor David. This is a large investment we are making to be able to server God in more and better ways. We are hoping that the level of unity in the congregation on this plan will inspire giving, and allow us to accomplish these plans. The unity that we feel we are experiencing now was not shared in the prior plan. Additionally, we are hiring a Financial Consultant that is exceptional, and she will provide us with guidance financially and spiritually to help us as we proceed.



19. Have we accounted for inflation in this plan?
    Yes. Cost increases for construction are assumed over 5 years. Costs per square foot are already inflated to handle this.



20. I noticed that God’s Far Purpose took in $900K, but we only have $630K of that available. What happened to the rest?
    Yes. Some of the money for God’s Far Purpose was used to expand our staff offices.



21. Have we planned for increased operations costs of the expanded facilities?
    Yes. The Finance Committee is aware of the plan, and the operating budget will need to account for the increased costs.

Worship Space Questions

1. What is the seating distribution between the CLC gym and the sanctuary in the new plan?
   Sanctuary gains 75 seats for (395 total). CLC gym stays current size for 480 seats.



2. Are we still going to have to put out and pick up chairs in the CLC?
   Yes. Some uses of CLC may be able to transfer to the new spaces to limit this somewhat. But since we are maximizing the use of all of our spaces, we will still need to do this. There was a discussion about just how well we do use our church. “We do what we have to do.” In fact, our architect had never seen another church that could do so much with the limited space we have. We are far beyond anything that Keith had seen, and he has worked with thousands of churches.



3. Will we extend the CLC gym/service space perhaps by making the classrooms across the hall open to the outside and extending the seating space toward the back of this space?
   This has been discussed in some prior team discussions. But this change may have some significant costs as the back wall of the CLC gym is a load-bearing wall. So adding this to our plan will add some significant expense to the project.



4. How will we handled disruptions in the worship services during construction? How disruptive will the renovations be in the CLC?
   The sequence of construction will hopefully minimize the issues with this, but there will certainly be a time where we will have to worship in overflow areas like room 217. Hopefully, our additional staff will be able to help us make these overflow areas meaningful worship environments that will be more successful than some of our similar past experiences. Once the Discipleship center is finished, we will also have a couple of large new areas which we could use for worship opportunities.



5. Are we going to exhaust our pastors since we are not expanding our worship space significantly?
   We have to consider the balance of worship vs. ministry/mission space. The pastor’s have been consulted on this topic, and they feel that the current number of services is not an issue. We also have a significant amount of available worship space in some of these services.

   Owen mentioned that it would be more helpful to have administrative help during the week than less services. Essentially, it was stated that preaching the same sermon multiple times was not that significant of a burden.




6. Are we being short-sighted by not expanding our worship space now?
   The Campus Design Team and architect have left the possibility for further expansion if needed, but the church is downtown and completely land-locked. So the existing lot can only handle so many without having significant issues with parking, flow, and campus balance. We are anticipating that other churches like Acts may take on some of the new membership, and that we will continue to find innovative ways to use the space we have. For instance, we may have worship opportunities in the large youth area and the family area in the Discipleship center. There is also significant capacity for worship available in some of our existing services for those willing to attend at those times.



7. Couldn’t we use the larger spaces of the new Discipleship center for worship?
   Yes. There was some discussion on opportunities in this area, and Pastor Lee made a note that there are already plans to use these spaces when they are available.



8. The sanctuary has issues with acoustics along with some structural problems. Should we be doing more?
   Some acoustics and A/V work are in the budget. Major structural changes in the sanctuary are not planned. The idea of expanding the sanctuary significantly was investigated by the design team. Significant reconstruction on the sanctuary will be very expensive, and if we started over with a new building, this caused us to use the set-backs currently mandated by Apex. This would allow us less space with which to work for a new sanctuary. Beyond this, during the process of discernment, the team found that the priority of a new or greatly enhanced worship space was not the greatest need of the congregation in our service to God.



9. Can we make a crying room or somewhere where parents can worship with babies and young children?
   This has been considered by the team, and there are some possibilities for this in the fine tuning of the planning. We should consider this in the next phase of architecture and planning.

Parking/Flow Questions

1. There is a concern that 800 seats for worship will cause issues with services so close together in time. How will parking and flow be handled?
   There was a note about our current capacity of 800 people in worship. We are adding 75 people to sanctuary, so the worship increase is not that large. Grasscrete was mentioned as a parking improvement that would also allow drainage. There was also a brief discussion of worship/education/parking balance concerning the fact that we are not greatly expanding the worship spaces.



2. Have we evaluated our potential parking issues related to our expansion, railroad maintenance/construction, and long term plans to close one of the railroad crossings (Moore St.).
   We are definitely using the parking spaces to the maximum now. We may have to get more innovative in the future. There was discussion of using Scott’s parking lot and the Community Center parking lot with transport to/from the church.

   Some of the parking ministry stated that we may lose 30-100 spaces in this plan due to our construction and some that the railway may be planning, and it was strongly suggested that the team talk to Apex about how best to solve this problem, as it is an Apex problem as well as an Apex UMC problem.




3. Does parking behind the staff house prohibit expansion of office space?
   No. That is still possible.



4. How many parking spaces do we have now? Do we lose or gain any spaces?
   We have around 500 spaces available now. The plan defines 269 new spaces. However, there may be other impacts depending on activity by the railroad, and adjustments to the preliminary plan.



5. Can you play football on grasscrete?
   Not really. It is more like environmentally friendly paving.



6. Can we put up a Harvest Fest tent on grasscrete paving?
   Yes.



7. Are all gray areas shown on the drawing grasscrete?
   No.



8. Is there a covered unloading/drop-off area?
   Yes, at the Crossroads area, and the Discipleship Building porch.



9. The parking shown on the diagrams appears to be incorrect. Is it?
   Yes. Ignore the specifics shown on the drawings. We know there are some issues with the way that parking is shown.



10. We are going to immediately lose parking with the construction of the Discipleship Center. How will we handle this?
    Yes. We are going to have to be flexible during this time. There will likely be some hard top laid down for the construction equipment, but we are going to be without some of our parking. Flexibility is one of our strengths, so we will have to work together to find solutions.



11. How is preschool drop-off going to work with the new parking configuration?
    The parking lot layout on our diagrams is not correct, and we know that there will need to be consideration given for the preschool drop-off. We will need to keep this in mind as we work on the next phase of the plan.



12. When kids are dropped off and picked up after service, isn’t there going to be a bottle neck?
    We have expanded our existing CLC hall, provided a crossroads for gathering, and provided security areas for the small children and nursery. However, we could find that these create bottlenecks. Specifics on how to improve the plan should be provided in the next phase of planning.



13. We need better access for fire and rescue vehicles.
    Yes. The architect has accounted for ambulance access, but there may be additional space needed. We are planning to comply with Apex’s requirements on this, and that may require some changes to the plans.

"Green" Building Questions

1. Can we capture water run off and use this water?
   There are a number of "green" technologies that we can use. These have not been defined in this phase. The Campus Design Team is planning on these decisions being made in Phase 3 when the final architectural plan is drafted.



2. Has the Campus Design Team considered green construction and environmental stewardship?
   Yes. We have considered this. The decisions on exactly how to use some of the green technologies will need to be further considered in Phase 3, when we are doing the final architecture and construction planning. One note there is that being “green” will likely mean some additional costs. So as good stewards of both God’s creation and God’s mission and ministries (and the supporting budgets of both) we will need to evaluate the costs and make these decisions.

Building, Scheduling, and Logistics Questions

1. Are we going to have adequate musical support space?
   Yes. The exact layout is TBD by Worship Arts, but we feel that the space will be much improved over the current space.



2. What are we doing with the Moore St. properties?
   The Design Team has made recommendations that these properties be used to provide more parking, but this decision is up to the Board of Trustees to decide, and it is outside the scope of this plan.



3. There is no expanded office space? Why not? Don’t we want all of our staff together?
   True. The Campus Design Team discussed staff office space with the staff, and through discussions it was found that the some of the staff wanted offices closer to their respective areas of ministry. There appeared to be no strong need to put the staff in one location, so offices have not been expanded.



4. When will we run out of space again?
   Current projection is this will handle our classroom and worship space for about 15 to 20 years.



5. We do not move the trailers until 2013 according to the plan. This violates what Apex has asked us to do regarding the trailers, as they want them gone ASAP.
   Yes. This is an issue. We may need to use the Phillip’s (and Rainier if available) property in the short term if this is a big issue.



6. Have we looked at getting more properties in the area? Are we precluding this with this plan?
   The design team would not preclude this, but the debt load would be the primary decision factor for doing this. If such an opportunity arises, it will need to be prayerfully considered, and then financial and construction plans adjusted as needed.



7. Acts – where are we with their assistance and will they be using a large part of the campus?
   Acts will be using our property at 9:35 for a few years.



8. How do people get tweaks and recommendations in to the team to make additional modifications before/during phase 3?
   A suggestion was made to get more specific about how this would be handled. Paraphrasing, the answer was that the larger portion of this work will really start after May. Further discernment will be part of that phase along with further visitation and discussion with the congregation. Short term, the best way is to communicate with the team is to talk to any of the members or send us mail or e-mail.



9. What will the exterior of the building look like, and will it compliment the other facilities now?
   The current plan is for the new buildings to be raised in the same style as the existing buildings. Beyond this there is a planned covered porch area on the Discipleship center that can be used for moving around the campus as well as for sitting on the porch and reflecting. The concept was to have a large front porch area like so many of the neighbors in our neighborhood. We wanted them to feel that we were keeping with the spirit of the neighborhood and the feel of downtown Apex.



10. How do we hire an architect for phase 3, and do we currently have any architects in mind?
    The selection of an architect has not been started yet aside from some recommendations of those to consider. If there are recommendations that should be considered, please let the Campus Design Team know so we have a list of those that should be considered.



11. A concern has been voiced that the attendance has been low for the Town Hall presentations thus far (after 1st week)?
    At this point we are not too concerned because in the last set of Town Hall meetings we had a similar turnout in the beginning. There are some folks who are tracked out or on spring break so I anticipate that we will see more folks coming in the later Town Halls. We will also be reminding everyone again in the services and the One List.



12. Have we looked at the staging and scheduling of the plan to minimize impact on the church?
    Yes. Our campus is currently well used, and the consultant that we hired was extremely impressed. Typical churches have about 175 people/acre when looking at total acreage including parking, etc. However, we are attaining 275 people/acre which was higher than he had ever seen. So, we have to be extremely careful in this regard.

    The scheduling of the plan has been laid out to minimize impacts, but this is only a preliminary plan that can be adjusted as needed. Additionally, depending on funding the plan can either accelerate or slow down according to the funds available.




13. What are we doing with the Chatham St. house? Can we sell the house if we are not going to use it?
    The use of this lot will be decided by the Trustees. The Design Committee has recommended to the Trustees that we remove the existing building. There is no plan for the space currently, but could at least park there. While property acquisition is not part of the plan, we should watch for opportunities.



14. Are we allowing for expansion of the current staff offices in the future? Will the current parking plan permit that expansion?
    Yes. The office space can be expanded if desired. The office expansion can be expanded with minimal impact to parking.



15. Are the office spaces shown current or a new building?
    Current. No changes to the staff house are indicated as yet.



16. Consider a dedicated AV area in the plan. None seems to be shown. There may not be enough handicap spaces indicated. The storage sheds, and their function, don’t seem to considered in the plan as yet.
    Details will be developed in the final design process, and there will be discussions with focus groups to determine those details.



17. Why do we have to be present to vote on this?
    The Methodist “Book of Discipline” requires that present members only be allowed to vote. So, we are following a rule as set forth by the church.



18. Our kitchen is inadequate for all that we do. Shouldn’t we expand it?
    This can be done later, but it is not planned as part of the current effort.



19. Shouldn’t we just use the playground area as well in the construction?
    This was considered, but the architect advised against it, as the kids will still need a central playground, and the extra square footage is not required and will add to our costs.

Additional Recommendations

• The plan should allow for space for the audio visual equipment control center in the sanctuary to be hidden.
• Handicapped parking should be addressed and probably done in hard surface. There is not enough handicapped parking. Really not enough parking in general.
• Team needs to look at acoustics changes that may occur in the sanctuary including existing issues and those due to the space changes and try to minimize issues.
• The storage buildings and the dumpsters already on site were not addressed currently in the preliminary plan.
• A suggestion was made that green catch basins and re-cycled water for irrigation was important and should be used.
• There were a number of praises that the new design was wonderful and the team was commended for their work. Additionally, there was a comment made in appreciation that we kept the sanctuary largely unchanged, and that we preserved the history of the church.
• The dumpster and storage buildings need to be considered in the parking plan.

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