On Sunday October 30th, the voters of Immanuel approved the School Expansion committee’s recommendation to work with Excel Enginering of Fond du Lac to find out what the practical solutions may be to add space to our growing school. Also at this meeting, it was announced that Immanuel’s Endowment Fund Committee has approved a $4,000 grant from the Endowment fund toward the potential $10,000 total fee from Excel for this preliminary work. Excel is working on a time-and-materials basis.
On November 1st, the School Expansion Committee held its first meeting with Tom Schermerhorn from Excel. In this meeting he was able to meet most of the committee. One way to cut some costs on our end was to have blueprints available from the original building and previous additions. The committee provided Tom with all the blueprints that he needed. Excel will scan these blueprints for us and supply us with an electronic version of all prints.
Discussion was started by Tom going over again what it is that Immanuel is looking for in the addition. The committee brought up all the things that were talked about previously. The addition of 3-4 classrooms, storage, commons. The connection between the church and school and making it easy to get from the lower parking lot to the church was focused on. If the drive through is eliminated, having a way to drop off under a covered area was focused on as well. Tom from Excel brought up if there were any other improvements to current buildings that may need to be addressed in this project. The committee shared with Tom that over the past few years many areas have been updated. There are two possible areas that could be included, and that would be school windows on the east side, and the foundation of the church boiler room leaks some, so that may be a time to have it looked at.
Tom from Excel talked about identifying the talents within our congregation that can help lower some costs. The committee would need to relay this when and if this goes to bid so companies know exactly what it is that they need to bid.
Our next meeting with Excel is Wednesday, November 16th, at 6:30pm. As always, if you have any questions or input, please email schoolexpansion@ilutheran.org.