DESERT FOOTHILLS

The Building Team has been hard at work planning for our Growing Legacy Building Project. We met many times in the last seven months and have accomplished much. There have been some bumps in the road (mostly the City of Scottsdale) but thanks be to God that bump has been cleared, that logjam has broken! And we are moving through the City approval process. Even still, we made good forward progress towards our goal these past months, especially planning preschool improvements and assessing technology needs.

 

We will keep this summary simple and plan a congregation update meeting before summer break with greater detail when we have updated timelines and cost estimates.

 

Preschool (Building B)
As you know the Growing Legacy project included the addition of two restrooms and a light remodel of the original portion of the preschool building, along with replacing the original playground equipment. All of these projects will be ready to start and complete this summer, so our preschool will kick off the new school year this fall refreshed and ready.

 

New Worship Center (Building E)
As most of you probably know, we have been engaged in a prolonged discussion with the City of Scottsdale regarding the allowable overall height of the building. They interpreted the code differently than we did which resulted in a height reduction of five feet. We tried a number of different avenues to win the conversation including consulting a real estate development attorney, but in the end, we made the decision to accept the reduced height rather than spend more time and money arguing something that was probably not winnable.

The height reduction necessitated some tweaks to the facade which our architect, Steve Barduson, recently completed. The changes are subtle and retain the concept of the original design, while incorporating congregation feedback concerning the color and making the stained glass cross prominent to passersby. Renderings will be ready for our congregation meeting.

We have spent a great deal of time touring new churches throughout the metro area to better understand lighting, seating, audio visual systems, etc. This is helping us to make decisions that will not only create a great experience but will also be smart investments that will serve DFLC well without overspending for more “horsepower” than we need.

We are planning to break ground on the new contemporary sanctuary sometime in November with completion scheduled for Christmas 2024.

 

Remodel of Traditional Sanctuary (Building A)
We recently spent time making sure we have the right solution to improve the audio in the existing sanctuary. The addition will make the space larger so it will be important that the audio sounds great from every seat. The remodel will start once the new contemporary sanctuary is finished and, Lord willing, be ready for Easter 2025.

 

Remodel of Fellowship Building (Building C)
Since we will be using this space until the new contemporary sanctuary is finished, this remodel will not take place until early 2025.

 

That’s about it for now. We would ask all of you to please continue to pray for our progress. As always, thank you for your support!

 

Your Building Team