An Update from Fr. Christopher

October 2, 2019

Dear friends and faithful of Holy Cross,

Thank you for your faithful prayers and generous support of our building process. We have reached the exciting phase at which funding is falling into place and structural engineering is being completed for the total project.

As was announced a month ago, Steve Iltis, Steve Richards, and I, representing our Finance Committee, had a great meeting at the end of July at our diocesan assembly with Orthodox Church Capital Improvement Fund (OCCIF). They are a great organization set up precisely to help fund projects like ours, offering terms more favorable than banks, with their more complex underwriting, can offer. To prepare for the meeting, we took a preliminary loan questionnaire, which reviewed our past records and future growth plans, and then we met to discuss our situation in more detail. After asking some clarifying questions, OCCIF said that they want to work with us! We discussed a loan amount of approximately $650,000 at 5% over 20 years. We are excited to partner with OCCIF, and we are also grateful to the bank we have been talking to for a few years before meeting with OCCIF, because while they were not the type of lender that typically would fund a project like ours, they provided excellent advice about what it would take to demonstrate our loan-worthiness and financial health to our future lender.

We also had an encouraging meeting with the Diocesan treasurer, and we are scheduled to begin receiving repayment of the funds that we have had on deposit with the Diocese. This will allow us to have that money available for the beginning of the construction phase.

As for our progress on the building itself, the Building Committee met with our builder in August, and we had the opportunity to see the amazing work of the structural engineer. The meeting was not without its challenges, because due to tariffs and other market forces, the price of structural steel has risen significantly recently, which means an increase in the cost of the steel in our building. While this does put us in the position of having to make some hard choices, it is not unexpected; we have talked from the beginning about the influence of the cost of labor and raw materials on the overall cost of any project we may undertake. We believe that we will be able to finalize the project and come to an agreement with the builders on the guaranteed maximum price, despite the challenges of increased material costs. We will be meeting again soon to discuss some additional options produced by our architect and structural engineer that will allow us to stay within our budget. As a reminder, the design-build process gives us the advantage of knowing what the maximum project price will be, barring any later design changes.

Once we have our contract with the builder, which should be possible to draft soon, we can formally apply for the loan. Then, when we have the loan in place and the building documents are finalized, we should have a clearer idea of the construction timeframe. We will also be able to look at the project as a parish and take the vote to go into debt that is required by our by-laws.

I'm so excited about reaching the point at which construction is within reach, especially knowing that we have the firm support of our Diocese and Archbishop Alexander for the direction we are taking. Please continue to pray for the process as we finalize our work.

In XC,

Fr. Christopher