Friday Snapshots

Tower Columns Arriving

Three of the four tower columns are on site with the fourth on the way. These are the longest components by far at eighty feet, and are arriving assembled. They reach to the top of the masonry portion of the tower. From there, an aluminum steeple will rise to the full height of about 150 feet. It will be impressive to see these columns standing up!

Structural Steel Continuing

Erecting the steel has made for some great viewing. Things will start seeming slower while a great deal of welding is done. Sometime in the next few weeks we'll see the 80 foot verticals for the tower go up... that'll be something to see!

My favorite view is from the ball field side. 

Welding up at the ridge line. These guys don't stop for rain or cold. 

With decking and insulation board going on, the sacristies are starting to feel like rooms. 

Raising the Crossing

Structural steel taking shape

You can see the south transept filling out and get a sense of the elevation of the church. That's architect Kevin Hogan in the foreground!

Steel Erection Begun Today!

Tympanum Sculpture off to Evansville for Casting!

This incredible piece will be cast in a stone/resin material and will cap the main entrance door. We'll see how well the casting takes, but the original clay shown here is breathtaking. The sculptors were Nancy Drone, Andrea York, and Brooks Bleyer.

Detail of Saints Kateri and Patrick. 

Detail of Saints Mary and Joseph. 

This is the largest piece but there are four panels that will also enrich the church immeasurably... Stay tuned!

time-lapse to 8/16/14

Same period, two different angles.

Forming vault walls

Forms are progressing for the pouring of the vault walls. This vault will be functionally just for mechanical features like furnaces and pumps, but there will be some space for emergency refuge and it will be an extraordinarily strong structure.

And if you drive by you'll see the large quantity of ductwork on site. These are big! The volume of the building requires a lot of air flow; moreover, the noise of the heating and A/C inside the building is decreased by having larger ducts because the same volume of air can be moved at a lesser speed. 

Vault slab!

Vault Work, Pouring Lowest Slab

Concrete pump truck; Completion of lowest slab

The Mechanical Vault taking shape; Sumps installed in upper left

St. Kateri Construction HQ!

Stone arriving

Thanks to Brady Boulds for our first haul of stone!

Ready for the 4th next year

So I'm not 100% sure but I'm assuming this assembly is a fireworks launching system for the tower. 

Fr. Longenecker on sacred architecture

http://catholicexchange.com/preaching-hall-temple

A brief but very good summary of the philosophy behind St. Kateri Church, and traditional Catholic architecture in general. Thanks to Cram and Ferguson for helping us strive for this goal!

Time-lapse video, just for fun

Materials Selection

Working toward a mock-up panel for reference during metals and masonry. We've chosen a stone blend from Earthworks, and picked roofing and metals colors to harmonize. The guttering and the steeple spire will be the patina green color you see; a dark gray slate colored roof tile is pictured, a sample of the cast stone color for cap and buttress elements, and we're going to split the mock-up into two mortar colors to help choose.

Week 4 update: Foundations

De-watering is progressing in the basement area; it will probably take another week or two. Lately we've been watching the footings take shape on the east end.

The apse is outlined here in the background, facing south

North wall foundation ready to pour. East/Apse foundations built up in background.

Ample supervision was on hand for this pour on Tuesday after Mass.

The north side foundations extended

Window Salvage

Workers from Jacksonville Art Glass carefully remove and crate the stained glass from St. Francis Xavier Church for restoration and installation. Prayers with the people of the former St. Francis Parish!

Week 1 Friday update

Excavation for east footings. Will need to be inspected, then filled with a layer of rock, then concrete footings. 

De-watering pumps are working away! There's already a noticeable difference, but how long it will take to make the deep excavation possible is anyone's guess. Work remains focused on the east end until then.

De-watering wells

Richardsville Drilling dropping the first of three de-watering wells

Continuing excavation on the west end, where the mechanical vault will be, requires some de-watering. This is accomplished by drilling wells and pumping down the water table. We're drilling three wells today and will get that started. It's hard to predict how long it will take to dry things up enough to work, so we'll just have to wait and see.

In the meantime, excavation and foundation work can proceed on the west end of the building, which is much shallower.

While it would have been ideal to avoid the necessity of de-watering, it was a contingency we expected and planned for. There is a considerable amount of money in the budget for exactly this. The bottom line is that excavation and foundation needs remain the highest-risk phase of the project, in terms of possible complications. But the status so far is that, while we aren't exactly seeing our best-case scenario, we haven't run into anything we haven't planned for.

Excavating Lake Kateri

Trucking by Hish Farms and Payne Farms... Thank you!  We're obviously hitting some water and soft sand. Not exactly a surprise; it can be dealt with. Don't fall in though. 

We've Begun!

We've got green lights from the diocese and all the submittals needed to begin the first phase of construction. Scott Phillips et al are working today tying rebar, with excavation to follow next week.

So mark it down, May 30th, 2014, the first day of construction work on St. Kateri Church.

!!!  *clink*  !!!

Field Trip to Earthworks Quarry

Earthworks of Perryville, Missouri is providing the stone for the exterior of the church. We're delighted to have such a relatively local source for the stone, and grateful to Earthworks for being great to work with and for helping us make the finances work. We needed to pick up a sample pallet, and took the opportunity to tour one of Earthworks' quarries.

Computer-controlled (CNC) wet saws cut dimensional stone

5-9-14 Friday Update: Statements, Shops, a Sign, and some Puddles

Hello all, still watching things slowly falling into place. As of the conference call yesterday Poettker still needed shop drawings for some early work. I'm still working on Diocesan approval. And now we're getting into some weather. So I guess those three factors can race to see what ends up holding us up.

Diocesan approval is a critical step, and I'm happy about the quality of communication so far. It was frustrating that it took so long to get the documents we needed to pass on to them... but once we did, they've been responding within hours most of the time. This week I've been working hard with Jim Mroczkowski, the diocese's CFO, to get adequate financial statements and documentation on file. Yet another educational experience!

I also finally have a quarterly cash flow projection from Poettker. In combination with the documentation I've worked up for the Diocese, I think I'm in good shape to sit down with a loan executive. I'd like to make that happen early next week. We'll need to borrow short-term to bridge between the one-year construction schedule and the four years left of the pledge campaign. We'll need some slightly longer-term debt to make up the difference. If our fundraising continues to go as well as I think it will, the church will be paid for quite quickly.

Of course, if the parish still has the appetite and resources, there will always be additions possible, but after such a huge outpouring for this project, I won't be pushing anything too hard. It's okay to leave something for the next generation!

I'm meeting a second stained glass company in St. Francisville on Tuesday. With two proposals in hand we'll look to get that glass removed quickly so the parish there can move ahead with there own plans.

Swing by and see the construction sign!

Windows and Stations from St. Francis Xavier Parish

Here's the latest GREAT news about the glass and stations from St. Francisville described here.

The transfer is approved and official. If you haven't followed the Flickr link to photos, check it out. They really are fantastic. It's impossible to exaggerate the impact this glass will have on our church.

The plan, you may remember, was to install clear glass windows initially. Over time, as funds became available, the parish could commission stained glass to insert. Even in our wildest fundraising dreams, though, we wouldn't have been able to achieve glass of this quality. I don't know exactly what fabrication of similar windows would cost today, but I'm quite certain it would exceed $50,000 per window.

The windows have been seen and measured by a representative from Art Glass Unlimited of St. Louis. They are qualified to do the delicate work of removing, restoring, and reinstalling the windows. He seemed to indicate that the windows were in generally good condition and the restoration required would not be excessive. Still, I'm anxious to see the numbers. I haven't the slightest idea what to expect when it comes to the cost of this work.

We will also seek at least one other proposal for comparison.

St. Francis Xavier Parish (now merged into St. Lawrence Parish) is also providing Stations of the Cross, also pictured at the Flickr link above, and a nice sacristy cabinet. We investigated possible reuse of the pews in the church, but that didn't pan out.

Please pray for the people of the former St. Francis Xavier Parish, now members of St. Lawrence Parish, who have been so generous in the midst of a tough transition.

First Weekly Update, Without Much Update.

Hi everyone, as we transition into the building phase of our project, I thought it would be good to start a habit of weekly blog updates.

This week there isn't much of an update, but at least I can explain what is happening, and not happening, and why.

The effort right now is to obtain diocesan approval for our final plans and for the terms of our contract with Poettker Construction. It's taking longer than I'd like to gather the needed materials. All we lack now is an up-to-date cost breakdown to provide the diocese. The minute the contractor provides that, I will forward the package to Bishop Braxton and his advisors for approval. We should not expect this to happen in a day or two, but I trust that everyone involved will do what they can to move us along quickly. We have everything in place to do our excavation, but we don't want to do that until we're ready to get Poettker working. Otherwise a big hole collecting water is just another problem.

In the meantime, we've started paying more deliberate attention to later elements like pews. The pews and chairs will cost somewhere between $90,000 and $105,000. We have proposals from Gunder, New Holland, Sauder, and Ratigan-Schottler, and are talking with Heritage Design of Peoria.

Fence Day

Our fence-raising party went better than could be believed. We had a fantastic turnout, plenty of equipment showed up, and everything was organized well enough that work went extremely fast and smoothly. In six hours we ran something like 1400 feet of fence. We also ate very well! Twice!

Groundbreaking! Groundbreaking! Groundbreaking!

Well, this has been a long time coming! The groundbreaking ceremony was absolutely fantastic. Thanks to the building and fundraising committees and many others who helped plan and execute this event! Thanks also to Mark York and Tony Cox for two inspiring messages!

Speakers and Prayer inside

Msgr Lawler takes the first shovel-full

A Gift; Astonishing, Inspiring, Bittersweet

Please pray for the people of St. Francis Parish in St. Francisville, IL. St. Francisville is right up Rte. 1 and sits beautifully on the Wabash. Along with several other parishes in our Diocese, St. Francis has been merged into a neighboring parish. In a way, every Catholic in Gallatin County can relate because every Catholic in Gallatin County has had to say goodbye to their parish as formerly constituted. But in another way the situation doesn't compare. St. Francis Church had its last Mass this Sunday.

Out of great sadness, the people of St. Francis have found in their hearts an incredible, profoundly Christian love. Knowing of a parish nearby who is building a new church, their wish was to contribute whatever they could. Even in their loss, they find a generous spirit.

They also hope to find some comfort knowing that the treasures they've guarded and loved for so long will be treasured by others, and not sit in a warehouse somewhere. And it's not so far to drive... I hope they will visit from time to time and see what they've given and what it means to our parish family here!

I was excited to see the Stations of the Cross at the parish. They are by Daprato and are cast in plaster and painted. They're somewhat smaller than the stations destroyed in St. Joseph, Ridgway, but similar in design. This is a most welcome development for us. There are nice stations in our chapels but they aren't available since the chapels remain in use and need to have stations. Acquiring a set of fine quality like these would probably not cost less than $10,000.

We will look into a few other possibilities. The pews might be able to be used, but it's a bit tricky and we're working on it. The same goes for some nice interior doors and decorations.

But the crown jewel of St. Francis Parish is the truly remarkable set of stained glass windows. I am almost certain that they will fit into our openings, and that any slight modification in the openings needed can be accomplished. When we took the measurements it was almost spooky. These windows are considered by many to be the finest in our diocese, perhaps next to the Cathedral.

There are plenty of details to work out and it won't be inexpensive to transfer the windows, but I feel we can find a way. I've posted many photos of the stations and windows and a few other things, you can view the photos here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/93102373@N04/sets/72157641241101545/

Interior and Furnishings

Feast your eyes on the latest interior sketch! This gives a good example of the visual relationship between the Crucifix, Reredos, Altar and Ambo. It also shows some things we're looking at in terms of decoration: colors on the ceiling over the nave and sanctuary, the sanctuary walls, and if you look very closely stenciling at the top of the walls. Any suggestions for text for that stencilling? How about my favorite St. Kateri quote: "The Cross was the glory of my life and of my death and I wish you to make it yours." And what do you think about these colors? The one we're finding especially difficult is the sanctuary wall color.

Also note that this drawing shows the most recent revisions as we near construction. The only exception is the columns in the foreground which will not have that faux-stone cladding. Perhaps we could do something cool with paint there.

Another color study. The building committee wasn't crazy about this sanctuary color either, and didn't care for the stenciling on the nave walls. Agree?

Here are some furnishing ideas... some you've seen, some hot off the presses.

Altar Proposal

Baptistery

 Baptistery with Mosaic floor

Crucifix over altar

This week I'm on a road trip visiting some salvage houses. I'll take some photos of anything promising I can find. Perhaps some great deals will come our way!