Building The MAC

MAC Progress Update - January 27, 2010

Have you noticed the fence that has gone up around the future location of the Ministry Activity Center? That marks the beginning of the construction phase and puts us on our way to having a brand new building that will allow us to expand our many ministries available at the church.

In order to keep everyone safe, we ask that you please do not try to enter the construction site. We are working on getting a tour together later in the construction process to allow you to see the progress. Until then, we will give you as many updates as we can.

This week we cleared a few cedar trees and readied the portables and storage shed to be moved to their new location.

Want to see inside the fence? Well, due to safety we cannot allow you to walk on the job site, but we put together a video to give you an inside look. Watch it above!

MAC Progress Update - December 17, 2009

We broke ground on the new Ministry Activity Center on Sunday. God graced us with beautiful weather and we had a great turnout from our congregation and leaders in our community including Lakeway Mayor Dave DeOme and City Council member Dennis Wallace. Representatives from our architects, McKinney York Architects, as well as from our general contractor Braun and Butler were also in attendance.

We anticipate the Ministry Activity Center to be completed around this time next year. The new building will house new classrooms for our youth, a classroom for our adults, a full size kitchen and a large multi-purpose room with a basket ball court and stage. We will keep you informed with our progress. And, as always, you can see the latest news on the project at www.ltumc.org/mac

You can read more in the Lake Travis View article found here.

MAC Progress Update - November 18, 2009

On Nov 17 Braun and Butler, our General Contractor, along with McKinney York, our architect provided the Building Committee with its "Guaranteed Maximum Price" bid. While there is some fine tuning to be done, the bottom line is that it is nearly 5% ($200,000) less than the previous best estimate only one month ago from our architect and well within our financing capabilities.

This is wonderful news and assures us that we will be able to build out the site plan including landscaping, roads, storm water management and sanitary sewer connection as necessary . The MAC will retain all the functionality that we want and need, including a multi-purpose area with best available acoustics and "hide-away" performance stage, a fully equipped commercial kitchen, youth and adult classrooms with contemporary fixtures, flooring and finishes. It will be a facility about which LTUMC and our community can take great pride.

Construction will begin in mid-December with a planned 10-month completion. More about events surrounding the groundbreaking will appear elsewhere in Impressions and during Sunday services very soon. Also, we expect to have new pictorial renderings of the building in the foyer in the coming weeks.

MAC Progress Update - August 12, 2009

On August 11, the UMC District Board on Church Building and Location unanimously and enthusiastically approved our architectural and financial plans for the Ministry Activities Center.

This is the final approval required by the Texas Methodist Foundation (our lender) to close our loan with them. TMF will provide funds for the project beginning immediately.

MAC Progress Update - July 8, 2009

Since your overwhelming vote to approve construction of the new MAC last month, behind the scenes things have been occurring at a feverish pace.

Texas Methodist Foundation (our lender) has formally approved our request for financing. The Finance Committee will soon make a recommendation to the Church Council for the most appropriate financing option among several that TMF has proposed.

Last week we selected our general contractor who will manage the project on-site, identify sub-contractors and obtain the most competitive and appropriate bids.

By the end of July the site development plan will be submitted to the City of Lakeway for approval. This will include physical location of roads, structures, retention basins, utilities, etc. In a public hearing the City also granted us a height variance to accommodate our planned building design.

By early August, our architect, McKinney York will begin detailed design work of the building interior and exterior with construction grade drawings ready for submission to the City of Lakeway by sometime in October.

If permitting and approvals proceed as expected, we plan to have groundbreaking in early December, with construction completion approximately one year later.

For those of you with a passion for sewers, you will be happy to know that survey/design/engineering for extension of the sanitary sewer to our property began last week. Construction of the line itself will start in early 2010 and require about four months to complete, long before we need to connect at the church.

We will do our best to keep you informed of the progress as we “Go Forward by Faith.”

MAC Progress Update - May 6, 2009

Please attend one of our informational meetings where you can ask your questions about what the church members will be voting on at the upcoming May 17th All Church Conference. Click here for all dates and times.

MAC Progress Update - April 22, 2009

Our architectural firm, McKinney & York will be presenting the MAC design to the church on Sunday, May 3 at 12:00pm. We invite everyone to come to this presentation to see what the scope of the new MAC building will be. The financing plan will also be presented at this meeting.

Our church conference will be held on Sunday, May 17 at noon. This is a very important meeting, as it will be where the church votes to move forward on the project.

MAC Progress Update - April 8, 2009

Your Building Committee met April 2 with our architectural firm, McKinney & York (MY). MY provided update site plan renderings, internal building schematics, and external elevations of the new buildings and proposed modifications to our main church building. There was broad agreement that we have a building proposal that is both functional and attractive and would meet the needs of our congregation for the foreseeable future. MY also provided refined cost estimates for the MAC, the adult education connector building, the renovated administrative office area, expanded sanctuary narthex, and relocated music room. Taken collectively, the overall project actually is estimated to cost less than previously expected. However, the MAC portion is projected to cost somewhat more than we had hoped for, when all aspects are considered.

Over the next two weeks, the Finance Committee and the Forward by Faith Committee will be taking a hard look at how we can accomplish as much of the plan as possible in a fiscally responsible manner. We will be holding a church-wide informational meeting in early May to lay out the strategy going forward with the goal of a congregational vote by mid-May to endorse the plan.

In a parallel but important development, there is a strong consensus among the Building Committee to recommend to the Church Council that we participate in the planned sewer extension which will serve property owners near the church along RR 620 up to the Lakeway city limits. Our share would be expensive but no more so than our costs to build new septic field capacity on our property as part of our building expansion. If we do not invest in this extension, there may not be another opportunity in the foreseeable future where we could again tap into a regular sanitary sewer system. Details of this project will be finalized among the affected landowners in the next 30 days.

MAC Progress Update - March 25, 2009

On March 17, LTUMC made its second presentation to the UMC Austin District Committee on Church Location and Building outlining our plans to construct a Ministry Activities Center and related facilities later this year. This meeting was a follow up to the initial discussions with the Committee in June, 2008. The Committee enthusiastically endorsed our plans and requested that we return for a final review as required by the UMC Discipline just before awarding the contract for construction this fall.

MAC Progress Update - March 11, 2009

On March 5 your Building Committee met with McKinney York Architects (MY) for our first look at the schematics (room/space layouts) for the MAC including youth classrooms and activities areas. MY also included layouts for the adult education classroom connector, reorganized and expanded administrative offices in the sanctuary building, and expansion of the narthex and nearby areas. This work was based on the updated program needs provided to MY by the Committee, staff, and various members of the congregation over the past six weeks. We were very impressed and thoroughly energized by what was presented. It was particularly noteworthy that MY is planning on a building that takes into consideration the latest advances in green technology to minimize energy consumption and to maximize opportunities for use of re-cycled and sustainable materials for the construction itself.

In early April, MY will return to present to the Building Committee a meaningful and realistic cost estimate to construct all of this. We plan to present our recommendations along with artistic renderings of interiors and exteriors to the congregation on April 19, followed by a congregational Charge Conference on April 26 where all members will be asked to vote to proceed into detailed design and construction. It is unlikely that we will be able to build all of the pieces at this time, but we are confident that a fully functional MAC with youth areas and commercial kitchen is possible with our pledged capital funds and additional support of the Texas Methodist Foundation. In any case, we will recommend to do as much as is financially prudent now while maintaining momentum to complete the remaining phases as soon as possible.

In the meantime, do not hesitate to speak with individual members of the Building Committee and catch our excitement over what is coming to LTUMC. We are all anxious to get the word out to everyone!

Jim Miles, Ken McCannon, Shelley McCannon, Tim Myers, Rocky Howard, Lynn Myers, Patty Rosemurgy, Harry Barnes, Randy Beaver, Ronny Platt, Robert Machnacki, Andy Smith, and Will Sutliff (capital project coordinator).

MAC