PBC Building Updates

• Praise the Lord for our new team of men who are overseeing our building project—Rathana (Kevin) Sin, Albert Gutierrez, Daniel Jones, and Shane Manly  are God-sent men who are taking our building project to the next level!
• Albert is working on the pricing of our underground plumbing and our first new estimate is $12,000 under our budgeted cost for this material.
• We were given a number of great tips from our advisers about making changes to the HVAC mechanical drawings which could save us $95,000 or more in the end.
• We may be able to save up to $1,300 on a material called Visqueen needed for the slab (21% savings from our lowest previous bid).
• Materials breakdown for the rebar for the slab and foundation—We found a vendor that will give us concrete for $9,300 less than the lowest bid from before and that bid was about $7,000 less than the next vendor.  We also found another rebar company in LA that is giving it to us $1,000 less than Home Depot, who was $7,000 less than the lowest bid previous to the new team’s arrival.
• A company about two miles from the church may be able to save us $6,000 on the rock that we need for the foundation of our building.
• THANK YOU FOR YOUR FAITHFULNESS—Please remember that in order for our building to be built, we must continue to faithfully give that which we have committed. As a church, let’s stay faithful, and if we haven’t been, lets get back to doing what we know the Lord wants us to.
• Please continue to pray for God’s favor, direction, and guidance as we seek to glorify Him and build our building in His time.

Last week we successfully completed our grading pad compaction test. Our soils engineer came out and performed the last test and prepared a final report for us to turn into the city. The grading overall has been a huge project. It’s by God’s grace that we have completed the digging, recompacting, and hauling out of the dirt.

We also had our civil engineer come out to certify that the grading pad elevation is correct. They measure vertical and horizontal planes to ensure that the building pad is where it needs to be. Praise the Lord that the fine grading passed this necessary step! Meanwhile, our mechanical and electrical engineer is working on the changes that the city has requested.

Please pray as we comply with the corrections from the city.

Our Building Pad

• This week we were able to complete the fine grading!
• Please continue to pray that it will pass all of the necessary inspections.
• On Thursday the soils engineer tested the soil for compaction and it passed—praise God! We will have several other inspections next week to get it signed off.

Developer’s Fees

• We finalized the paperwork with LBUSD! We sealed the deal for our $150,000 savings of developer’s fees. The school district signed all necessary forms for us to take to the city.
• This step is necessary before we can pull our permits.
• We also paid approximately $26,000 to LA County Sanitation Department for the sewer connection that we will make with the addition of our new building. This was also required before we can pull our permits.

Our Plan Check Review

• We now have all the comments and requirements back from the city on our drawings. Overall the items indicated were very fair.
• Please pray as we now begin to rework and finalize our drawings.
• Our civil engineer was able to complete his share, and we were already able to resubmit them.
• There are many different people involved in this process and we do not want to rush through it and end up adding unnecessary cost. The next step is to rework and coordinate the drawings and resubmit them to the city so they can do their final review.

We are preparing to finalize our grading pad. Our next step is to layout the gym so we can cut it down another 2.5 inches. They gym floor will be made up of layers. The concrete slab in the gym needs to be 2.5 inches lower than the rest of the building. Next week we will have a man that will be coming In from Lancaster to help us. He will also help us do all the fine grading and complete the work so we can call for the necessary inspections.

We Signed on our fire sprinkler contractor, Crown Fire Co. They will be starting their drawings so they can be submitted to LBWD and the city. The owner, Bill Cain, has given us the opportunity to save $28 an hour per volunteer that we can provide him to help him do the work! This also serves as a reminder that we must be diligent in doing all that we can to support the building project individually. This will save us thousands of dollars on labor costs. The material for all of the fire sprinklers is scheduled to be donated by Rob Yardley. This is estimated at a $50,000 savings.

We received the plan check review comments from the City Mechanical Engineer. So far we have received comments from building, plumbing, mechanical and public works.  We still are awaiting for the plan check comments from planning and electrical. We are coordinating with the structural engineer, the metal building manufacturer, and our architects to make the required changes. Praise the Lord that the comments have been very fair and reasonable. Our advisors were surprised that we did not receive more comments on a project of this size and complexity.

God has worked in the area of developer’s fees. All commercial buildings like ours are subject to pay developer’s fees, one of which is the Long Beach Unified School Districts’ $3.18 a square foot. On our building, this would amount to $150,000. Praise the Lord that on Friday we found out that we are exempt of these fees! $150,000 that can be used to further our building project!

Our Permits

• We received the plan check review comments from the building department, plumbing, and fire department.  We are now working on addressing the comments. We are a BIG step closer to receiving our permits!
• We are still awaiting the review comments from several other departments.

Our Jobsite

• Praise the Lord for Total Equipment. They brought over a 2,000 gallon water truck that would normally cost $225 a day.  They are letting us use it indefinitely for FREE!  This water truck will help us to keep the dust down and to stay in compliance with the city’s ordinances.

Our Steel Frame

• We are also contacting manufacturers of steel studs. Clark Western has agreed to give their supplier special project pricing for our church. This will enable the supplier to give us an even deeper discount on the material. This savings on the studs alone can help us to save more than $20,000!

Our Construction Fastener Manufacturer

• We also met with Powers, a construction fastener manufacturer.  They design and sell construction fasteners.  They have agreed to supply all the tools required for FREE! And to discount all fasteners for this project.
• This will also save us thousands of dollars.