Building Planning Commitee
Update 1
Ministry Center 3 (pdf)
Updated Plan for New Construction
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Update 1 - 2008
Dear Church Family,
When our committee first began its work several months ago we knew that we were in for a marathon, not a sprint. This has indeed been the case thus far but we now have some exciting news to share with our church family. After many months of interviews with several excellent architectural candidates, many discussions and prayerful consideration we have selected Tripp Eure, of Peterson, Eure and Associates, an architectural and planning firm with offices in New Bern. Significantly, the vote was not close and Mr. Eure was the consensus choice of our committee. One of his strengths is that in addition to Mr. Eure’s architectural degree he has a master’s degree in Planning. We know he will do a superb job in helping us devise the best space use for our current buildings and thoughtfully lead us to what should be designed to fulfill the ministerial and fellowship needs of our church in the Swansboro community. Already you may have seen him at work measuring and becoming more familiar with our campus.
At the April 21st Building Committee meeting he gave a presentation on the relationship of our church campus to our surrounding community. Tripp had previously visited the site and had prepared some information which we could discuss with regard to expansion possibilities. He gave a power point presentation and discussed several features, including topographic, wooded areas, wetlands, and traffic. He said he felt strongly that the campus needed to be expanded in some form which incorporated an “axis of symmetry” (the north-south and east-west imaginary lines running through our building alignment). He also said he had a recommendation as to direction of expansion (but he did not give us his preference). He said it would be important that we discuss and decide in which direction to expand.
The group reviewed his data presented and took a perimeter tour of the grounds. While we were outside we could see some space limitations. We also discussed the driveway from NC 24, possibilities of access to Old Hammocks Road, the Barnum Building, parking, covered walkways, utilities, and drainage and traffic patterns.
Inside we were given a chance to comment a final time and after comments, voted our preference of which area of the campus to investigate more thoroughly. The unanimous vote was to concentrate on the south site (immediately adjacent to the new sanctuary). Our next meeting will be May 19th at 6:00 PM.
At their previous meeting in February the Administrative Board had voted to allow the Building Committee to hire an architect to undertake the Advance Planning necessary as a prelude to designing and building the proposed Ministry Center. The scope of the Advance Planning will include studying, analyzing and detailing our current building usage. We have to know where we are as a church before we can begin the process of envisioning where we should go. We’ll be assisting the architect with a great deal of input from our committee and will actively seek the same from you, our congregation. At the appropriate time and after the architect has done some of the preliminary planning work, the Building Committee is looking forward to working with Cargill Associates, a church financial consulting group. Cargill will help us determine the appropriate budget for the Ministry Center and in a very spiritual way, help lead us to what we are being called to build to further the ministry of Swansboro United Methodist Church.
We welcome comments from our church family and you may e-mail them to John McLean at jpmcleanpe@coastalemail.com or Julia Wax at jwax@EIRealty.com and we will share with the committee. As work progresses we hope to be able to post information, site maps and photos on the church website as another way to keep us all informed each step of the way. Most importantly, please keep the work of our Building Committee in your prayers as we take these first exciting steps on the way to a new Ministry Center for our church.
John McLean and Julia Wax, co-chairs SUMC Building Committee
Advance Planning Summary Report 3-19-09
Rooms in Ministry Center 5-5-09