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Building Progress
The Capital Campaign Committee and the Building Committee have hosted two major Town Hall Meetings; one on July 16th and another recently on September 10th. Approximately 600 parishioners, in total, attended one of these meetings. The following is a summary of the information provided. The latest renderings can be viewed on this website by clicking the title IMAGE on the Capital Campaign page. It is part of the page directory on the left-hand side of the page. On May 3rd the Diocese approved our request to begin site development. Since that time, Gateway Engineering was secured to provide a site plan and execute its approval through all the regulatory and governmental bodies. The complete development of our Parish site involves the relocation of a major natural gas distribution line and the construction of a new driveway which will connect our present property to Georgetown Drive. This driveway will provide the parish with two major means of egress and regress, one on Wexford Bayne Road (Rte. 910) and the other on Georgetown Drive. This new driveway on Georgetown Drive will allow parishioners to utilize the turning lane on Wexford Bayne Road and access our property via Georgetown Drive. According to the Township, Georgetown Drive is to be completed in the very near future and will be a connecting road between Nicholson Road by Pristine Pine and Wexford Bayne Road at the Waterfront Office Complex. When this is finally completed all of our parishioners coming from the south utilizing Nicholson Road will be able to enter our church property without going onto Rte. 910 at all. Of course, having these two ways on and off our property will also allow for quicker dispersement following every Mass and Parish events. We are presently working very closely with the Franklin Park Township for all of our necessary approvals so that we can begin site development as soon as possible this fall (2007). Should the financial funding be available through our Capital Campaign and the Diocese approves, we hope to begin construction of our new Church in the spring of 2008. Should all things go well, including weather, and continued funding, we may be able to begin celebrating Mass in our new Church by Easter of 2009.
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Land Acquisition The land acquisition of an additional twelve adjacent acres was completed on June 30, 2005. This was a monumental step in our need to expand as a parish and provide necessary space to support a permanent church of appropriate dimensions. Thanks to the grace of God and the tenacious efforts on the part of the Land Acquisition Committee, a creative and unusual deal was struck whereby no monies exchanged hands. In the end, a land swap was achieved whereby the North Hills Church of God moved to a new site on Wharrey Drive in exchange for their properties adjacent to us. The parish owes heartfelt gratitude to Mike McCabe of Goehring, Rutter & Boehm, who prepared all the legal documents for this transaction, and Gary Sippel of Allegheny Excavating, Jerry Horn of Jerry Horn Construction, and Joe Nowak of the Finance Committee. These men formed by Blue Ribbon Land Acquisition Team that achieved the impossible dream! With this accomplished we were finally in a position to compose an RFP (Request For Proposal) from an approved architect. Because of the technical nature of this endeavor and the proven expertise of the Land Acquisition Team, I named the same individuals and added Marty Wood, Vice-President URS and a member of our parish, as the lead team member for this task. After interviewing several architects, we composed a request for a feasibility study, master plan, and cost estimates relative to our expansion needs.
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