HELPING GROWING CONGREGATIONS `COUNT THE COST'

HELPING GROWING CONGREGATIONS `COUNT THE COST'

BY ELEANOR WALKER
CNA Architecture Group

Trinity Life Center in Sacramento, Calif. already had a design for its new 2,400-seat sanctuary. But there was one problem: the lowest bid was approximately twice the amount of the established budget.

"That's a fairly typical occurrence in this marketplace," said Vern Delgatty, founder of Delgatty Architects (DA) of Vancouver, British Columbia.

Delgatty has been designing churches throughout the United States and Canada for the last 25 years.

"Often congregations take it by faith that they will be able to afford all the space they want. They hope that people will give more money or that the bids will come in low," he added. "They often fail to count the cost in advance."

Two months ago, in a joint venture with CNA Architecture Group of Kirkland, Delgatty won a competition to develop a less expensive alternative for Trinity. The alternative reduced the project cost from approximately $120 to $61 per square foot.

The design and construction community hasn't made it any easier for growing congregations like Trinity to first count the cost before embarking on a building program. Delgatty hates to admit it, he says, but prior to teaming with CNA, this advanced control of costs through normal bidding procedures was a problem.

The problem is that in the traditional delivery of design and construction projects, costs are not known until working

"All churches will experience radical growth, because the ultimate freedom is spiritual reality, and the soul seeks to know where it will lodge in eternity."

drawings are completed and put out to bid. Invariably they are over budget. At this point the congregation is forced to backtrack, to revisit the program, and make changes and compromises. Then the project is re-designed and re-bid. If the second solution is over budget the process must be repeated again. Naturally this repetition takes more time and more money.

Delgatty says he knows now that his church clients need to have cost information long before drawings are complete. They can't rely on contractors' pre-design estimates. They need to understand real costs so they can establish realistic budgets and set realistic fund-raising goals.

They also need to be able to justify the costs of their building programs in terms of stewardship.

It was something of a revelation, says Delgatty about CNA, to find an architectural firm that specializes in the kind of project delivery that congregations believe to be consistent with their stewardship objectives.

CNA specializes in integrating the delivery of design and construction, a process that has proven to save time and money for clients in all of the firm's marketplaces: commercial/industrial, biotech/biomed, and healthcare.

"Our competition sells understanding of ministries and expertise in church programming," says Lawrence Houston, CNA's director of church architecture.

"Oddly enough, that's often why we get the job. Some of our clients say they don't need an architect who understands ministries. Some simply want an architect who can bring the project in on time and within budget. Also, they're usually looking for an architect who's not encumbered by preconceptions about church design."

Until Houston and Delgatty put their heads together CNA had no intention of pursuing the church market, although CNA had designed Overlake Christian Church's new 270,000 square foot facility in Redmond, a new 135,000 square-foot facility for Silverlake Chapel in Everett, and had just been awarded a contract from Evergreen Christian Fellowship to begin site development for a 47,000 square-foot facility in Issaquah.

However, Delgatty's practice had been growing so rapidly that he needed help in servicing his contracts. Together the firms have chosen to target growing congregations.

In addition to their work for the growing congregation of Trinity, Delgatty and CNA are designing a new facility with an 8,000-seat sanctuary for New Beginnings Church of Portland, Ore., and a 65,000 square-foot facility with a 1,000-seat sanctuary for Timberlake Christian Fellowship of Bellevue.

Artist's rendering of New Beginnings Church, Portland
Changing forms of worship pose special design challenges. Delgatty says any architect who seeks to design churches for growing congregations must recognize that these organizations usually depart from the traditional forms of worship. They tend to see themselves from a horizontal perspective, reaching out in unison to the larger community, in contrast to the traditional vertical orientation of the individual worshipper in solitary communication with God. Worship is interactive. Thus, the worship spaces must be designed to accommodate and promote interaction. For example, these new larger facilities tend to have some of the same characteristics as first-rate public assembly spaces, including highly sophisticated communications systems.

One of the special challenges in designing relatively large sanctuaries is organizing the worship space to achieve the proximity and intimacy necessary for interactive worship.

Another requirement of the large church is flexibility. Because the church may have many ministries that serve both the immediate and extended community (such as daycare, counseling, recreation, and education) seven days a week, they must be flexible enough to accommodate multiple uses. Most of these churches plan to continue to grow, so the design must also accommodate future expansion.

The growing congregation or "mega-church" phenomenon, explains Delgatty, is largely an evangelical movement. The fastest growing churches are the large independents and evangelical denominations that were formed in this century.

They tend to expand in direct proportion to their concern for outreach.

While some churches are concerned with providing basic human needs and others are concerned with preaching the evangelical gospel, the largest growing churches are concerned with both. Typically the exuberance and charisma of their congregations spark further growth. Mainline churches tend to start new churches rather than expand an existing congregation.

Delgatty believes that growing churches will be able to sustain growth.

Return to design '96 top page