At the Town Hall on December 14, we took a major step forward in the design consideration process. President Tim Miller presented a summary of UUA consultant Kay Crider’s financial analysis conducted in early December (full presentation of Kay’s slides can be accessed here). Our architect, Elizabeth Boone, then presented her summary of the site location survey she conducted over the Thanksgiving week (her whole presentation can be accessed here). Two major headlines emerged from those sets of data and the subsequent congregational dialog. First, It is clear from Kay’s professional financial analysis that we should have the means to generate approximately $3.5M to put toward improved facilities. Second, there was near unanimous agreement from a straw poll taken by those present that we should move forward in planning a new facility located on the east side of the current parking lot and design within the “Small +” configuration presented at the Town Hall.

Over the next couple weeks the Building Engagement Task Force (BETF) and architect will review the suggestions made in the Site survey and the comments and suggestions made during the dialog at Sunday’s Town Hall. We are still awaiting word from the city about potential uses of the adjacent “park”, which may change the way we can configure the building. However, by early January we expect to have a significantly more detailed plan for congregational consideration that includes as many of our wishes for facility improvement as we can reasonably afford. We will schedule multiple opportunities for further dialog with Elizabeth in early January to further shape the building and site design.