A Happy All
Saints Day (belatedly) to all you saints of St. Austin Parish! And a Blessed
All Souls Day to you all as well.
The prayer,
discussion, discernment and decision about our church and rectory renovation
project continues to move along. Your comments, suggestions and questions about
the three plans are still being solicited. These three plans were to get us
thinking about what we want our appearance to be. We are getting ready to move
to the next step in the planning process, so please email your ideas, hopes,
thoughts and feelings to us at PropertyCommittee@staustin.org. Positive
statements of approval are also welcome, as are all thoughtful comments.
Meanwhile, in an
effort to help identify costs, we are having testing done on the buildings to
confirm if there is asbestos in the mastic that helps hold the stones to the
building. That will affect our costs. Likewise, we are having some roofers
evaluate the state of the church roof. If the roof needs to be replaced, that
is obviously a cost we have to include. We have also, at the suggestion of the
Diocese Facilities Planning department, engaged Robert Rizzo of Rizzo
Construction, Inc. as “General Contractor at Risk” to assist us in the pricing
during this design phase. He has already been very helpful in directing our
thinking according to pricing.
The Property
Committee has also directed the architect to give us a more refined plan to
move the process forward. He is basically using Scheme 1 with some additions
and refinements, and moving it forward to greater detail that we can more
accurately price. The architect is in contact with the Property Committee (PC),
and will present the new scheme at a PC meeting on Wednesday, November 19. The
following week is Thanksgiving and the process will slow down for a bit.
Then on the
weekend of December 6/7 we will have a special booth at the Holiday Fair with a
presentation of the new scheme. Members of the PC, the Finance Council, the
Parish Council, and/or the Good Shepherd Comm. will be there to answer
questions and receive comments and feedback. This will be an important
milestone in the process and requires your participation. So plan to spend a few
extra minutes at the Holiday Fair getting updated and sharing your reactions
and thoughts.
Out of this
will, I hope, come a much clearer and stronger architectural statement of who
we are as a community; both our deep roots in this neighborhood and our strong
desire to reach out, invite and welcome all who wish to hear the Good News with
us. Please keep St. Austin Parish, the Property Committee, the Parish Council,
the Finance Council and our great Pastoral Staff in your prayers. Thanks.
God Bless,
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