Construction

So work started in earnest some time in November. The digging machines came and soon found something called "shale" which turns out to be some kind of clay which is so hard it is almost stone and requires the geotech guy to come in and evaluate and the contractor to rent some additional stone breaking type equipment. Apparently there is a lot of shale under the Hampton Village Mall which has caused some problems. The geotech guy looked around our basements and said we didn't have their problems. Still, it did mean on the second day of work we had about $4,000 extra expense. The architect was philosophical. "This is why we budget for contingencies." But as Marylen the deacon said, "Yeah, but you don't usually expect to have contingencies the minute you start the work."

Apart from that all seems to be going well. This process involves some sudden activity, like when the contractor called on the Monday before Thanksgiving to say we needed to clear out the purple room and vesting area (which were pretty much but not totally cleared out) by FRIDAY. I , of course, was on vacation (as I often am during property crises, like the time the fridge died and the time the sprinklers went berserk. Just a coincidence...)

The fabulous parish secretary Carol E. summoned help from various vestry persons and Kelly L. (since Altar Guild is most adversely affected by this project) and everyone moved things and all was well. Apparently in our future there will be some weeks when the AA room will be unavailable so that the contractor can connect the new sacristy and disabled bathroom plumbing to the sewer. And some electrical work will need to be done, I believe, affecting that space. I think we can accomodate the group in the parish hall... And of course under the carpet in all the spaces the contractors are working on there is asbestos tile....

So it goes on. Today they were pouring the foundations and you can begin to see the dimensions of the whole project. There were countless trucks parked on the grass around the construction. Rather impressive for such a physically small project.

Louis Stiller has been our faithful roving photographer and you can see his work (more or less in chronological order) on the St Mark's Flickr site which is here.

Link to the Flickr page or check back often since Louis takes new photos every week to chronicle our progress.

Immediately?

Click on any picture to see it full size.


I told you the name of this blog was ironic. It is a month since I posted about the great flood. Things are moving along nicely in the basement of the Proehl Center, where Service Master's restoration department are replacing the panneling and door surrounds and even the vanity in the bathroom. It should be done this week, although probably not in time to put all the rummage in the basement in order for the vestry to have lunch with the Bishop there... We'll decide about that by the end of today.

Anyway, these are pics of the basement work in progress. Where there was drywall, as in bathroom, they cut wet part out and replaced it. Where there was panelling, they put panelling, painted white so it will be a little brighter down there.

The elevator/jewel box project, you ask?

Well. I know it just looks like Diestelkamp has just parked the trailer and port-a-potty and gone on vacation but apparently they were waiting for various things they need to be designed and fabricated and for more detail on electrical work and HVAC and... well... they plan to start next week. Kim has been following the project closely and working with the architect and the builders behind the scenes. Apparently, once everything is ready, the project won't take long at all...

Meanwhile in Montreal, Juget-Sinclair are almost half way along with the organ. I guess that will go in another post.

FLOOD!!

Never a dull day here at St Mark's!

This morning, the guy who was digging with a backhoe for the lateral sewer line of our across-the-street neighbor dropped a boulder on the water main and it broke, overwhelmed the sewers and water came up through the drains in the church furnace room and Proehl Center basement. It came up to the first step in the PC basement, throughout the basement. It has receded now, leaving mud and, um, sewage. Patricio's helper discovered it in the church, then he got Carol and they checked the other basements.

The Water Dept. came quickly and shut off all the water on the block, I called Church Insurance and by the time I am writing this (3:12) Service Master has already started work on drying and decontaminating the basements, the adjuster has come, the HVAC guy will be coming to be sure it is safe to turn on the heat/air.



I'm pretty impressed, to tell you the truth. Church Insurance will negotiate with the company that was working across the street.

Service Master may also need to cut out the skirting board and possibly part of the paneling and/or sheet rock in PC basement if they are badly enough water damaged to be replaced -- which they probably are. So it is going to be a huge job but every effort is being made to assure that there will be no residual mold/smell.

Many of the items Kathy has collected already for rummage will have to go. Some are still dry and can be saved. I think that the altar guild stuff has been stored high enough up on shelves to be okay.

I don't imagine that any of this will be a problem for Sunday worship unless it is very hot or very cold and there is a problem with the HVAC which can't be fixed tomorrow.

WATCH THIS SPACE

This week, once the final permits are in hand, the contractors will begin work at St Mark's. They will bring in their trailer and their Port-A-Potties and various other materials and equipment. They will prepare the site, excavate for the building, and create the elevator tower. By late November they will probably be ready to demolish the wall into the church at basement level and at sacristy level, for construction for the new entries.
Here is a "before" view (thanks to our roving camera person Louis Stiller) of the back of the church. Watch this space (or drive around the back of the church every now and then) to see how things are coming along.

Immediately

Immediately is a rather ironic name for this blog. It is, as the explanation says, a word that the author of the gospel of Mark uses all the time, over and over again, breathlessly linking one unit of the story of Jesus to the next.

This blog is mainly meant to chronicle our two big "before and after" projects, the building of a new disabled access entrance and the building of a new tracker organ. Both of these are huge projects, brought about after a long process of reflection, planning and prioritizing and made possible by a generous bequest from a parishioner. The irony is that both of these projects, which have occupied a lot of the rector and vestry's time and both of which represent decisions made over almost a year ago, both of these projects appear to most people who don't go to all those meetings to be moving along not IMMEDIATELY but at a glacially slow pace. Still, we have drawings of both and time to chronicle the "before" state of things. Check by now and then (or better still get atom or rss feed so you know when something new is happening) and see how things are progressing. The rector's blog Things Seen and Unseen will morph into a more personal blog and this blog will become the parish news blog. Immediatelyl. Or perhaps more gradually...