Tahoma Unitarian Universalist Congregation

The Board of Trustees and the New Church Building Committee are pleased to announce that David A. Boe, principal of BOE Architects, PLLC, of Tacoma (click here for its website) has been selected as our design architect.  David brings us 13 years of experience as an architect of churches and other structures.  His designs, such as the First United Methodist Church, the Northwest Vipassana Center and the Pacific Peaks Council Girl Scout Center, have been praised for their creativity.  David has been heavily involved with the Tacoma City Council in urban planning, and has written his views in a series of blogs entitled "Imagine Tacoma."  We feel that he is an excellent fit to our congregation and to our needs.

New Church Building Committee and
TUUC Board of Trustees

Dear TUUC Members and Friends,

Enclosed is a copy of the Building Program (click here for a PDF copy) that was recently completed by the New Church Building Committee and James Guerrero, program architect. This report has been endorsed by the Board of Trustees, and will serve as a guide for us and for prospective design architects.

The Building Program pertains to the construction of the new church on Orchard Street. It is a culmination of more than two years effort by the Facilities Planning Task Force and the New Church Building Committee to identify the needs and wants of the Congregation and to determine what we can achieve within a realistic budget.

The Building Program is only a preliminary allocation of space that we believe fills our needs. It does not specify any particular design or arrangement of the space, or where the church would be located on the Orchard Street property. When working with the design architect rooms may be added or subtracted, while still remaining within the confines of total space allocated. As you read the report you will see many items and suggestions made by focus group attendees. We greatly appreciate the wealth of ideas provided by members, and will call upon you again in the future as we move forward into the very important design phase. During this design phase we will hone and alter the details of our new church even more. Therefore, congregational input, from focus groups or subcommittees, is vital.

Summary of the Building Program

The Building Program provides for church construction in two phases.  (Click here for more detail of the phases.)  The first phase of 12,700 square feet provides for offices, RE space, kitchen, and a social hall. (The social hall would be used as the sanctuary until the second phase is complete.). The second phase of 11,000 to 12,000 square feet adds the sanctuary and a chapel as well as additional office, meeting room and RE space.

The projected social hall is 4000 square feet. However we will ask the architect to design an option to increase the size of the social hall to 5000 square feet, provided we have funding, rather than leaving construction to the second phase. By comparison, the usable space (where the chairs might be located) in our current sanctuary is just under 3000 square feet, and the total area of both floors in the 56th Street Building is 9500 square feet.

Can we afford it? (Yes, we can!)

In December of 2007 we formulated a budget based on potential profits from sale of the 56th Street property, a mortgage loan, monies already in the building fund, and a capital campaign (with projections from UUA guidelines). Larry Wheeler, UUA consultant, examined the figures and said that we are in good shape to proceed. It is somewhat rare for churches in building programs to have both salable property and own an acceptable building site. This puts us on solid financial ground.

Although some might think the current economic conditions may impact our ability to raise the needed funds in a capital campaign, a regional UU church embarked on such a campaign in October (when the downturn was already clearly evident) and came within 5% of their projected total. Additionally, current construction costs are well under the 2007-2008 figures on which we based our calculations.