Our building program got started in 1991 shortly after the arrival of our new Mission Developer, Pastor Nicki Parrish. Even before our formal organization in December of 1992, we knew we needed to start to find a good site for our permanent church home. At that time, we had members who lived in both the north and south part of the county with long commutes of 15 – 20 miles to the Prince Frederick area for church. When we looked at sites north or south of Prince Frederick, the members from the opposite end of the County became concerned. ELCA counseled us on the need to be on Route 4 and very visible or we would just not get the growth that was expected. Given these two factors and the fact that land in the Prince Frederick Town Center was already very pricey, we had our work cut out for us.

By the spring of 1993, we had five candidate properties, three in Prince Frederick, one in Huntingtown on Rt. 4, and the Plum Point Road property across from the middle school. Most of our members were in favor of the 10-acre Plum Point Road property, but ELCA was skeptical and still promoted the Rt. 4 exposure. The sisters who owned the Plum Point Road property continued to talk to us but would not agree to a final offer until they could find someone to purchase the remaining 22 acres of their property. Finally in May of 1994, one of the sisters wanted to buy a new house in Arizona, prompting them to finalize the purchase with us. We then needed to convince ELCA to loan us $110,000 of the $130,000 purchase price and have them agree that our Church building could be away from Rt. 4 without hurting our ability to grow. ELCA did agree to the Plum Point property in the summer of 1994.

It took from May of 1994 to January of 1995 for the sisters to get their property subdivided so we could purchase the ten acres. Settlement on the property occurred in February of 1995.

From that point, the building committee became very active in planning how to build our new church home. We developed our own preliminary plans for a 10,000 square foot building, financial plans and time lines before we sought help from ELCA.

In the fall of 1996, ELCA told us we needed to hold a formal capital campaign to raise sufficient funds before they would assist us with our building program. By the spring of 1997, our financial results from the capital campaign showed enough promise that ELCA provided the services of its in-house church architect to develop preliminary plans for our building. The dialogue with the church architect was very beneficial, but raised many issues. Discussions took place on such topics as getting enough space built for our needs, to the type of space we should build. We considered formal worship area vs. multipurpose room, small classrooms vs. larger rooms with dividers, etc. How could we possibly exist in a building with less than 10,000 square feet? ELCA advised us that 7,000 square feet was more in line with our finances.

In the fall of 1997, we felt we were ready to work out the issues identified with ELCA’s architect, hire our own architect and proceed to build. ELCA felt differently and wanted us to delay starting with our architect until our growth and capital campaign results improved. Pastor Nicki realized that if we stopped or slowed down at that point, we would possibly lose momentum and it would be extremely difficult to get back on track for building. She worked with the Bishop and other ELCA church leaders to convince them it was in all our best interests to continue to move forward without stopping.

ELCA finally agreed with Pastor Nicki, and in December of 1997, worked with us to further develop our plans, which then included a 7,000-square-foot building and a maximum loan of $720,000.

In the spring of 1998, we hired Lawrence Cook and Associates from Falls Church, Virginia, to complete our building design. The building committee was most impressed with the beautiful interiors of the churches designed by Mr. Cook.

In the fall of 1998, we interviewed three local building contractors, as we wanted to hire the builder to work with the architect during the completion of the design. The benefit of this partnering process is that during the design phase, the architect, the builder and the building committee work together to make sure the building cost is not over the available budget. This eliminates the need to redesign the building if the contractor’s price comes in too high after the design is complete. We selected the firm of J.A. Scheibel, Inc., from Huntingtown, to be our builder.

There was a lot of give and take between the building committee and the architect during the design process. The architect wanted an all-cedar-board exterior, while the committee wanted all brick or brick and vinyl. We settled on brick and cement plank boards, which worked out well. The architect wanted a prominent stick built steeple; the committee wanted a simpler prefab steeple. We stayed with Mr. Cook’s recommendation on the steeple, and are pleased with the results.

In January of 1999, we thought we had all the decisions made and even had a commitment from ELCA to increase our loan to $800,000 so we could proceed to construction with our building.

Then the fire Marshall told us that the building either needed to have sprinklers or we had to have fixed seating in the sanctuary. Neither of these were viable options, as the sprinklers would have added over $100,000 to the cost of the building and fixed seating in the sanctuary would prevent us from using the room for alternate functions such as table seating for dinners or seating for stage shows. Discussions with the fire Marshall over a three-month period finally brought us to a point where he no longer required sprinklers.

Shortly after the sprinkler discussion ended, Scheibel told us that the building cost had escalated to a point where it was $70,000 over budget. After another three months of discussions between the architect, contractor, and the building committee, the cost was finally reduced back to the original budgeted amount (without a lot of compromises on the quality of the design) and we were at last in a position to give our final plans and cost data to ELCA in October of 1999.

Our $800,000 loan was approved in January of 2000, and construction started in early February. The period from February 2000, to November 22, 2000, when we received our Use and Occupancy permit, provided the most visible progress of our building program but was less eventful and stressful than all the things that happened the nine years before the ground breaking.

As Chairman of the Property and Building Committee during this entire process, I feel truly rewarded with the beautiful church that we have built and the tremendous support and help that everyone has provided during the entire process. For further details, anyone who is interested is welcome to read the six full binders of information that I have kept over the years!

- John Hofmann -

Those Who Helped Us Build