Mill Woods Campus Expansion

• As we have multiplied our weekend services, our congregation has grown to the point where we don’t have enough midweek space to disciple the kids, youth, and adults who call our church home. 
• There is limited room for preteen and youth programming to run concurrently with the weekend services. This reduces the opportunity for age specific programming and increases the number of people in the auditorium. 
• When the auditorium is at 85% capacity, the north entrance, gym lobby, and the area outside the nursery are highly congested after the service. 

In 2020, we were able to secure revised zoning for our Mill Woods Campus that reduced the required setbacks to 7.5m, allowing for the added space at the back corner of the building. 

Our major constraint at the Mill Woods Campus, however, is parking. The challenge was therefore to develop a plan that maximized the floor space without infringing on parking capacity. 

Over the years we have been able to use the parking area on the north east side of the intersection of 23 Avenue and 66 Street for special events. The owners are not, however, interested in allowing weekly use of the parking area.

Maclab Development Group acquired the Mill Woods Town Centre in December, 2022 to redevelop the site with a mix of retail and multi family residential properties. Construction will be starting this spring on the first phase of that project, north of the mall.

Within five years, they anticipate building on the parking lot on the corner of 66 ST and 23 AVE that we have used for special event parking.

We have worked on a design that adds a total of 18,320 square feet of floor space (an increase of 25%) while only adding approximately 3,400 square feet to the building footprint.  

Further land use efficiency is gained by incorporating into the addition space for the equipment currently in the garage. We can then remove the existing garage and offset the parking spots lost, as well as improve traffic flow through the parking lot.  

With the proposed plan, we expect to maintain the same number of parking spaces as we currently have. 

• Two new large meeting rooms on the main floor (where the existing general office are). 
• An expanded fireside room that can comfortably sit 100 people theatre style, with wider and more welcoming entrances. 
• A large room on the second floor that can comfortably seat 200 people theatre style, with its own lobby and washrooms. 
• Significantly wider entrances and hallways on the north side of the building and from the main lobby to the gym, to allow for proper traffic flow. 
• Two additional flex rooms on the second floor that can be used for preschool programs on Sundays and by youth and adult programs midweek. 
• One meeting room accessed from the balcony lobby. 
• Consolidated office space on the third floor (with a few offices remaining on the second floor), allowing our staff team to work collaboratively and improve staff safety. 

Our Mill Woods Campus opened in 1998. As it’s a steel and concrete building, it’s structurally sound. However, the building exterior is wearing out and many of our sloping metal roofs have developed leaks. This project includes a complete refacing of the building, which will not only make the building look great but will add insulation to improve energy efficiency and redo the sloping roofs to eliminate leaks and significantly reduce the ice buildup in winter. 

Additionally, a number of our rooftop units and exhaust fans that supply heat and cooling to the building are still the originals from 1998. We will be replacing them with new units as we relocate them, gaining energy efficiency and some savings over replacing them individually as they fail. 

With the scope of the changes to the floor plan in the hallways and lobby, we will also be replacing all the flooring in the common areas. We will take the opportunity to select flooring that is both durable and less slippery when wet than the current smooth ceramic tile in the lobby. 

The total project budget, including design, construction, furnishings and equipment, and contingencies is $15 million.

We have $3 million in cash committed towards the project, and so need to arranging $12 million in financing.

Christian Credit Union has provided us with a proposal letter for the financing. Under that proposal, after construction, the construction financing will be converted to a 20 year mortgage secured by our campus properties.We have the capacity to make those monthly mortgage payments within our current operating budget.

We are starting construction preparations now, and construction activity will ramp up as the ground thaws. The majority of the structural work will take place in spring and summer 2025, with the whole project expected to take between 18 and 24 months.

The third floor addition will take approximately one year to complete. During that time there with be limitations on parking and use of the existing second floor. Once the new space is ready, we can move the offices and begin the work on the main floor.

Our leadership and the board of our church had a lengthy discussion about the current economic risks, and considered many factors.

Tariffs are a threat to our economy overall, especially on companies that export to the United States. If Canada imposes retaliatory tariffs, materials sourced from the US and designated to be taxed by the Canadian Government would be impacted.

Our construction budget includes a contingency that provides a cushion to manage potential tariff impacts during construction should they be realized.

However, inflation in the market that is not specifically related to a tariff or tax is a risk the contractor bears, and people in the construction industry are anticipating cost increases regardless of the imposition of tariffs. By locking in our pricing for the major trades now we are better protected from cost escalations due to non tariff factors.

Overall, the board is confident that the project can be completed within $15 million dollars and of our capacity to repay the mortgage and judged the risks of not proceeding outweigh the risks of proceeding.

In the event of a extreme economic event that made the project fiscally irresponsible to complete, we could pause, delay, or cancel portions of the project while ensuring minimal impact on the building's operation.

• When the building opened in 1998, there were no elevators to access the second floor and no private accessible washrooms. 
• While we added an elevator in 2008, it’s difficult to access. With this project, we are adding a pair of elevators at the new main office entrance (Entrance 7).  
• The elevators will allow people to access the offices from the main floor entrance, without accessing the rest of the building, as well as connect to the second-floor preschool areas, allowing kids and parents with accessibility needs to access these spaces. 
• There is one larger elevator that will access the second-floor conference room, making that room convenient to access for people with accessibility needs. 
• We are adding two accessible private washrooms on the main floor and one on the second floor.

We have retained the same team as we did for the Terwillegar Campus Development: 

Frank Hilbich Architect Inc., is an Edmonton-based firm with experience in commercial and institutional work with a particular focus on churches and community groups. 

Valido Developments (Sheldon Taitinger) for project management and will hire site superintendents and trades for the project. 

We've looked at different options over the years for increasing the seating capacity of our main auditorium, and the is no structurally feasible way to add space to it.

As we've tracked the building usage on Sundays, our kids spaces are filling up before the auditorium and our parking capacity acts as a 'hard cap' on our capacity.