WE HAVE A FLOOR AND THE DIRT IS GONE!!

The look at the c0nstruction site is changing rapidly now. First, since the last posting, the walls around the basement have been finished and the basment floor has been poured. Dirt has been moved from the large piles to locations around the property to get the site closer to the finished grade. Footings continue to be dug and poured. In fact as of today, the entire east side and Day Chapel footings have been poured and footings have been dug for the entire north wall.

All of this is exciting but the real excitement begins with the arrival of steel on May 7th. If schedules hold, the end of next week steel will be placed in the basement and then on May 11th, the large beems will start rising toward the sky.

The photographs above show, work on the basement floor and views of the property looking toward and away from the Bell Tower which helps you see the progress being made.

BASEMENT CLOSER TO BEING ENCLOSED

Well, we had another 2 days lost to rain, BUT that didn't slow down Rentenbach Contractors or their sub contractors. We were able to get the last portion of the basement walls built. You may be able to read the name of Savage Pumpers in the photograph. Scott Savage, a parishioners has been pumping all the concrete for the basement walls.

Hopefully you also noticed that one pile of dirt is almost gone and the other is being rapidly depleted. That's because the sides of the basement have dirt back in place so that the structure is actually beginning to look like a basement.

In addition, the footings were dug and poured for the beginnings of the outside walls for the choir practice room and the outside walls of the sanctuary. There's a lot more to be done this week in advance of the steel arriving in early May and I'll keep you posted.

WHERE DID ALL THE DIRT GO?

As I'm getting ready to celebrate Easter Sunday, I thought, what better time to provide another update on progress on "Making A Place At the Table". A lot has happened in the last month. As you know, we've had an extremely wet winter and have lost 17 days of construction time due to rain and/or snow, but not to worry.

The last posting showed forms up in preparation for pouring the walls of the basement. As of today, all but approximately 50 feet of the basement walls have been built. In fact, the forms are ready to close in the portion of the basement which served as the access ramp to get equipment into the basement. Early next week that wall should be completed. Also, from the street you can't tell, but there is gravel placed inside the walls, in preparation for pouring the basement floor.

Once all the completed walls were waterproofed, we were able to begin moving dirt from one of the large piles to back fill behind the basement walls. So far the elevation has been raised by about 7 feet on 3 sides of the basement. This is a critical part of the construction, because the area around the basement walls needed to be leveled to the top of the wall so that footings for the steel structure could be poured. I say this is critical because the steel should be arriving for installation in early May. It won't be long until the structure really begins to take shape.

RAIN RAIN GO AWAY

First, we had snow, and now we've had 5 days of rain which turned the church basement into a swimming pool. As of last Friday, we had the basement walls formed and were ready to pour concrete....That is until the rains started. Yesterday, with it still raining we had several inches of water in the basement. Therefore on Tuesday, we began pumping the water out so we get back to work on the walls. The photo above shows what it looked like after all the rain.

SNOW DOWN

Well, yesterday was a beautiful day in Greensboro, but not if you're wanting to continue "Making A Place At the Table". I thought you would want to see some photographs of SPX with all the snow on the ground. The first two photos are looking across the consturction site with the basement. As you can tell, you can't see the concrete that was poured last week. The last two photos show the beauty of our Cross and Bell Tower.

Concrete Pour

Last week, footings were dug for over one half of the basement and installation of rebar or reinforcing bars (a common steel bar used to reinforce concrete and masonry structures) begun. Concrete was poured forming the footings which are 8 feet wide and 4 feet deep. It took 10 trucks containing over 90 cubic yards of concrete to complete this task.

The photos are as follows:

1. Footings being dug

2. Rebar installed

3. First concrete load being poured

4. After concrete poured and additional rebar in place getting ready for walls to be built