Presbyterian Church in Columbia, Maryland
Worship Every Sunday at 10:30 a.m.

Ministry Expansion Plan Update

It has been a little while since we last shared an update on the ministry expansion plan, but we assure you we are moving forward—even if slowly at times.  Here is what has happened since the last update:

  1. As you may well have heard we will host a public hearing on June 22nd at 6 pm as part of the process of getting county approval for our plan.  The site plan that will be presented at that hearing will be shared with the congregation at a meeting immediately following worship on June 5th.  We encourage all members to attend the meeting as some changes have been made to the site plan since it was presented last June.
  2. Air, Land, and Water Engineering conducted a full inspection and report of all of the asbestos in our building so we now know what kind of asbestos is here and where it all is.  We subsequently asked Asbestos Specialists Incorporated (a firm we might eventually hire to remove the asbestos) to give us a cost estimate for the removal of the asbestos throughout the building.  Their report indicates that it will cost around $250,000.00 to remove all of the asbestos from our building—including in the preschool area.  The committee is hoping and planning to have all of the asbestos removed, but is waiting to get a better cost estimate for the whole of the project before making any recommendations.  For many reasons we don’t expect to be able to get a cost estimate for another few months.
  3. A sub-committee has been formed and is already at work planning for the new kitchen.  This committee has visited other church kitchens in the area to get some perspective on our wants and needs, has received feedback from the architects, and plans to meet soon with a consultant who specializes in commercial kitchen design and installation.
  4. Another sub-committee has been formed that will focus on our IT/AV needs.

We are hopeful that we are still on schedule to break ground on the new construction and major renovations by this time next year—though any number of things could delay that schedule.  That does not mean that you won’t see any work done before then, though.  We may well get some work done before we break ground on key parts of the plan that can be addressed before we get all of the permits we need (i.e.—asbestos removal, replacing the roofs, etc.).

At this point we do not plan on vacating the building entirely, but will certainly need to move programs around at times to allow our contractors access to certain parts of the building at certain times.  We do not know which programs will be effected and when quite yet, but will have plenty of lead time to plan accordingly.

We have an excellent team working on this project from our committee to the architects to the civil engineers to the general contractors to our legal counsel.  We covet your prayers and support.

If you have any questions about the plan please don’t hesitate to reach out to the members of the committee: Bob Jenkins (chair), Patricia Wilder (secretary), Lauren Anderson, Tito Baca,  Tiffany Carmean, Tom Mawhinney, Steve Pettit, Scott Hoffman (ex officio)