 All right. Hi, everyone. Welcome back to the forum webinar series. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Priya Chhaya, and I am the Associate Director of Content here at the National Trust for Historic Preservation. In case you don't know, Preservation Leadership Forum is a professional membership program of the National Trust. This webinar series is made possible to lie members of Preservation Leadership Forum, and we sincerely thank everyone who is joining us today. Today's webinar is called From Concept to Reality, Preservation Project Planning Basics. And we'll give an overview of the process of architectural design and construction practiced by architects, engineers, contractors, and preservationists, which provides the framework for more most rehabilitation projects. But first, a couple of logistical things. We will take questions from the audience during the webinar. Instead of using the chat to ask your question, please use the Q&A box in the sort of the black bar at the bottom of your Zoom panel. You're welcome to talk to each other in the chat during the webinar as well, but we will only be answering questions that are submitted via the Q&A panel. The closed captioning function has been enabled, and using the black bar at the bottom, you can enable it or stop it as you will. And following the program, we'll send out a recording of today's webinar directly to the email you used to register. And finally, all forum webinars are archived in our forum webinar library. And one more thing that I forgot to mention, we'll be answering questions from the audience at the end of the webinar, but you can feel free to ask them at any point during the actual conversation. And now I'd like to turn things over to my colleague, Olivia Terakoni, the preservation architect for the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Hey, Olivia. Hello. Hi everyone. Okay, so that's me. And we'll get started here. We have a lot to cover, but today's webinar, like Priya said, is to help you get started on the process of taking your building from your building rehabilitation project from concept to reality. Perhaps you're completely new to the process or perhaps you're looking for a refresher and some new tips, or perhaps you're a seasoned architect or construction professional who would like to give me some tips afterwards. You are all welcome. And thank you so much for coming and joining us today. The process I'll describe the process of designing construction is practiced, as Priya said by architects, engineers, contractors and preservationists and provides the framework for most rehab projects but also for most new construction projects as well. Next slide please. So a little bit on my background so you know my perspective and where I'm coming from with everything that I'll be telling you today. I'm a registered architect, registered in the State of Pennsylvania which is where I began my career and education. I'm currently located in Houston, Texas, however, I have been with the National Trust for since 2017. And I work on our national treasures campaigns, as well as the National Fund for sacred places. So the picture you're seeing on the right there is of Nina Simone's childhood home which is one of our national project campaigns that I helped assess the building and prepare it for an architect to work on it get them started on the assessment and then the conceptualization of the rehabilitation. So the perspective for pretty much everything I'll be talking about today comes from our work with the National Fund and the National Fund for sacred places is a very large program we do hear the National Trust but Allison King will be joining us later to tell you more about that. But all you need to know about from my perspective is that each of the participants that are in the National Fund undertakes a big capital improvement project to their building. So we are taking them through through this process. So when I'm working with technical assistance with the National Fund participants I'm helping them rate RFPs higher design professionals communicate with their architects and contractors. And then in the end reviewing their documents when they apply for their actual grant funds. But today everything we talk about should be general enough that you can apply to any building of any scale. No small task. So next slide please. The construction process is getting you from concept to reality so it's getting your idea into using the space taking your program and making the space right for it making the space that can contain it, and making drawings that turn into the material reality the design to the construction. Next slide please. So this is is well established it is mostly consistently applied and it really is is a framework and the framework is important and I hope you all can come out of this understanding a little bit about the framework so that you can navigate within that framework. It is a standardized framework. We can learn about it as architects when we are applying for our licensure to our tests. And there are many resources to help you about it is a good one is not our licensing body or licensed by the state, but by each state, but you can definitely use the the American Institute of architects website for resources on the process as well as contracts which I will work with you to refer to later a little bit. But of note, and why we're all here on preservation leadership forum is that preservation projects actually take an added layer to this process because they require some variation and that variation happens on the front end. Because starting from an existing building is different than starting a new construction and starting a starting a project with a significant existing building isn't even an additional layer. We will be talking about that layer and making sure that you understand the difference between the traditional project process and of a project and the preservation version of it so you can help advocate for your historic building. We have created for you a checklist a resource Pria looks like she just linked it. Thank you. It is by no means a Bible to how to do this but it is a resource to look to as a reference for how when you're going through a project. It's not a list but it's really just an outline of this presentation today in the one page front and back kind of form. It'll be linked in the webinar as well. The end. So next slide. Before we get into design and construction I do want to just give a very brief preservation overview. I'm going to try to, you know, tell you all about the entire preservation field and to select three slides. We don't have a historic building and haven't really interacted with with the preservation infrastructure that much. There is a lot to learn and a lot of nuance I'm going to keep it as general as possible. But basically, when we approach when preservationist approach of building there are four treatments they're approaching it with. So it's kind of like what do we do in preservation we apply these one of these four treatments to a building preservation rehabilitation restoration reconstruction. Preservation is under it's a little confusing but as a treatment it's simply a sustaining the existing form as is no updates. No, every change over time is maintained you maybe make a couple updates for building code compliance and stability of the building rehabilitation on the other hand is improving the building to make possible compatible use so you're preserving the historic character, but you're also bringing it back into active use for potentially a different use than it was originally intended but it's compatible restoration is taking a building back to another time a period of significance and stripping away all other periods so it's very specific to a time and reconstruction is a new construction actually but it is accurately replicating a non surviving structure. These treatments are outlined by the Secretary of the Interior to talk about in a sec, but it's basically the philosophy for approaching a building but within that there are many different pieces to a building perhaps you're going to restore a window or restore a banister, but you're not restoring the entire building in a restoration you're probably doing a rehabilitation and the design and construction process at its core is about improving and changing a building so for the context of the rest of this webinar for the most part I will be talking about rehabilitation. Next slide. Now, that's what we do in preservation at the highest level and this is who you deal with so there are a lot of people practicing preservation. There are. This is a chart that has helped me since I've been in preservation. As an architect and thought to be helpful for people are familiar but we have regulatory governmental agencies and we have advocacy and private nonprofits and then they have each of those different types of organizations at the national state and local level. So we at the National Trust are the private nonprofit at a national level and an example of another org that does this national work would be preservation action. We are the nonprofit private counterparts to the governments, not national organization that's enforcing the National Preservation Act is the National Park Service, which is a part of the Department of Interior. State level we have for the regulatory we have the State Historic Preservation Office goes by many different names so check, make sure you know what yours is here in Texas ours is the Texas Historical Commission, other places will just call it the State Historic Preservation Office or SHPO. And then you might have a statewide nonprofit. In most days we do here in Texas we have preservation Texas so it's a nonprofit, not regulating anything but here to advocate for preservation on the statewide level. And then have the local level, depending on the ordinance of your city or town you might have a preservation officer and a local preservation commission of some sort that actually is regulating the physical changes to your building so this is the local level is of note to you as a person doing a design and construction process project on a building. And you probably also have a local or few many different types and interest local nonprofits that can be useful as you embark on your project as well. Next slide. So, how we do it the secretary to your standards is and the guidelines said best on their websites this is held by the National Park Service and part of the Department of Interior. It is common sense historic preservation principles in non technical language. They are to promote the historic preservation best practices that will help protect our nation's fewer placeable resources. Pretty layman's terms almost standards listed in words that can be interpreted very differently but luckily they also provide a super detailed booklet of guidelines so check out the nps website. These are what govern how we do a lot of our work. And very important to the field and to your work going forward on your building. Okay, next slide. Let's go back to your building and your project. So, you're here to learn general best practices for preservation project planning. And I like to start with these three sort of overarching best practice principles. So, before you go out and hire anybody start internally, look, look women side what are your internal priorities for your building. What, why are we changing our building. Perhaps it's just a deferred maintenance project or perhaps it's we want to change how we function overall how this building is positioned in its community in the world. So, figure that kind of stuff out before you hire someone so you can best use their services. And then I recommend memorializing those priorities and some sort of internal priorities document or something you keep around so that you can always kind of check back with yourself. Next, I would say, look for preservation or look for professionals experienced in historic preservation and that goes for our contractors engineers and anybody who's going to be touching or designing your building. It's, it's a different unique set of circumstances required that are that exist with historic buildings, so it requires a unique set of professionals. So you want to check their qualifications and references. And just remember a good architect may not be the right architect for your project so the architects who designed the amazing industrial rehab into a shopping center in your town or city, may be the best person to do the design for the restoration of a historic house museum with Victorian details. And same thing goes for a contractor who might be fantastic to work with on a new house or a kitchen renovation, but if they've never worked with a historic building before they can really truly do more harm than good. So, check qualifications. And lastly, make very thorough plans before you touch your building before you change it. And doing a physical change to your building can be irreversible or extremely, extremely expensive to reverse. So a wrong decision could end up impacting future historic designations or current or funding sources related to that. So, it's not just meant to scare you from proceeding it's meant to just scare you away from someone who walks in and says, Okay, let's go, let's get started. If they walk in with a hammer, ask them to put it down and say let's talk about what the design is first before we proceed. Okay, next slide. So, the process that I'm talking about the design and construction process is usually talked about in terms of design build, but the overlay of historic preservation is that we want to add an assess part beforehand so the assessing is when you begin with diagnostics begin with diagnosing your building, and we would call that the pre designer diagnostic space the gray on the right will relate you back to the checklist of that pre ascent. So after we do, after we assess we design and create a roadmap for how to proceed. Then we bid the project where we pick the team who's actually going to alter the building. And then we build, we implement that plan. Next slide. So, begin with diagnostics, the metaphor for the diagnostics and the pre designed case I like is of a building x ray, and this photo is fantastic. I wish anywhere it came from sorry credit internet, but a building assessment is like an x ray for your project because doing a construction project project on your building is like doing a surgery, and I don't think any of us would like someone to open up their chest with how to doing the appropriate amount of diagnostic testing like MRI CAT scan, whatever they need to make sure that we're going in we're doing the right surgery, the right project. So you can then proceed from there with a relatively low investment, compared to the rest of the process with confidence that you're doing the right thing for your building. So the example that I like to provide here was given to me by another architect and he was telling me how he had a church come to him and say we want to replace the roof. We see it in the ceiling of the sanctuary. And he said, hold on, before we just replace the roof, let's assess and figure out why the leak is there. Lo and behold, the roof was totally fine. It was an HVAC unit in an adjacent attic leaking so replacing the roof if they had just decided to call a contractor and place the roof. All of that would have been a waste and the leak would have continued. So, that is why we assess. Next is the building assessment is sort of the tool for assessment so we encourage every congregation that we work with to commission and an official holistic building assessment report. So the checklist will give you more details on what to include in those types of things that they have lots of different names, like a condition assessment and HSR feasibility study and master plan. But the intention of an assessment report is to find the sources of your issues and then provide prioritize recommendations for how to proceed. So ultimately giving you a path of option and how to proceed forward in a way that is prioritized and you can choose then with how to proceed with the actual work. Next. So the design phase is essentially creating the roadmap for how to proceed you know where you're going after you've done the assessment phase. You know what kind of what your end game is, but it takes a lot to get there because buildings are full of so many complicated and interconnected systems. And you want to make sure that you're getting the quickest route there they've got like the Google maps algorithm going for traffic right, you want to make sure that you are getting there as quickly and efficiently as possible. And it's critical to do a detailed a detailed map, essentially, and it takes some time. And this is where your architect comes in. A contractor who says, Okay, I see your feasibility report or I see your condition assessment. I'll just do the work is kind of like hiring someone to drive a car who can't read who didn't make a map. You can probably can read a map obviously they just need to be provided with it, but it would be like asking them to follow the North Star you really want to give very detailed directions and that is the architectural design part of this process. Next slide. The shortest but also very important part of this is the bidding phase where we pick the team. So just, it's kind of a plug for competitive bidding, making sure you're getting multiple prices for the same scope of work. I'm hiring a team captain to pick the team from your side as the owner, which could be a project manager internally or you hire someone else, but make sure you get the best team you can like the women's World Cup team from a few years ago. Next slide. Last we implement the plan so construction like tattoos is not easily reversed, especially for historic buildings. You'll have steps along the way and you will have no regrets and your tattoo will look nice and be spelled correctly and nothing will have to be. So, now next slide on to the details if that wasn't enough this is a animated slide so Ron is just going to click through all of them for me thank you. So we've got the design bid build process. And within that there are smaller pieces. So pre design SDD DD CDs bid CA operation pre design is the concept kind of formation of project basics, and I'm just, I'm talking about the traditional version right now I'm going to do a host or preserve reservation overlay and the next slide. Schematic design is where we have the creative big picture concepts, and then your architect will come to you for approvals and then go back and design more in design development. So designing building systems your structure your mechanical what are they going to look like. And then we get to construction documents which is where the architect puts their head down and designs, all the tiny little details along the way and this takes a while and they, your they disappear for a little bit of time and come back to you with a lot of paper, and that's the, that's your roadmap that they're making. And then bidding and negotiation and construction administration, also these are the roles of the architect. They can help you do the bidding, and they can also be hired for construction administration to help make sure it's the billing, the work is done and built, according to their plans. So that next slide. So the, oh yeah, sorry we'll go through a little bubbles. The overlay and the next slide with historic preservation is to really expand that pre design phase. So it's essentially the assess that I was telling you we're adding, and it's the diagnostics we're doing and possibly a stabilization phase where you've diagnosed with your building and you know where you want to go but there's some urgent stabilization work that needs to happen so you can do that sort of parallel to your, your regular design phase, and construct it construct me stabilize your building while you're working on the design for the rehabilitation and improvements. So all this is a preservation is just much heavier on the pre design work. And there's the stabilization phase parallel possibility. So each of these pieces are have associated deliverables and the pre design assessment phase has many different options so these are going to depend on what you need for your building. And like I was saying before there's many different names. So without preservation you might be doing a real estate feasibility study programming and use study concept like over designing the form or evaluating the site for where you can actually put things on the piece of property you're working with. And then in preservation you're assessing the condition you can do a conditions assessment of the building itself historic structures report to do a lot more about the building. In its history and many other aspects and then zoning and code review can be important before you even start a project just to make sure it's feasible. And many, many more options and then at each step in the design process. There's also a set of drawings and specifications until you get to your final your bid documents. So lots of jargon here but just some words to know that can be and will be thrown around during this process. Next page. So, who does what I kind of referred to it but always worth defining but the architects job is on the design side. And it's to perform a building assessment, then do the design can be separate contracts would actually recommend doing them a separate contract so you can have some time to pause and reflect in between. The design is then translated into the manual for construction which is your construction documents, which once we sign into a bid with a contractor become contract, you know, part of the part of the contract and the contractor is contractually obliged to do it the way that it was drawn. Number four ensure the building is constructed as design this is the construction administration task I was talking about before you have to add that on it's not always a service. Just make sure that your contract with your architect is inclusive of that. And the contractor's job is different than that it is to provide a price or bid for the scope of work outlined in the design documents and construct the project according to those documents. I tell you all these things because it's just when there are variations from these very typical roles is when you should just take a moment step back and reflect so contractor may try to come in earlier. The question will and provide estimates and if they would like to do that that is extremely helpful. You can also hire independent contract cost estimators via your architectural contract. But I don't recommend hiring a contractor until after you've done a competitive bidding process. So, just because someone's giving you estimates doesn't mean you're beholden to hiring them and just making sure that you're you're trying to get the best price possible. Next slide shows you just at each phase in the process who who's who we recommend in this traditional process you are working. So, the architect is there for the design portion and the contractors there for the bid and the build. Just remembering that because the block the lines can get blurry there's so many steps but these are the, again, the brain. Let's see. So the next slide is just showing you sort of the organizational chart of the relationships and who's paying who. So you as the owner are paying the architect and the contractor but they are not tied to each other contractually the architect and the contractor. So hiring the architect for the building assessment like I said and then later separately subsequently, or maybe all in one for the design itself. So the architect will then hire sub consultants so this is where your structural engineer your mechanical engineer electrical plumbing fire protection landscape on their code cost lighting. Lots of different sub consultants these are all people who are designing these are the different systems but the architect is the one coordinating them and sub consulting to them so you are paying the architect, and they are paying their sub consultants. The owner may have a set of consultants on their own and these are people that the architect maybe is not willing or wanting to coordinate, or maybe it's just somebody that is you are closer with as the owner. So, examples of that are, or it's also things that don't need to be coordinated like a geotechnical or site survey that it's not going to change you just kind of are hiring it out and then it's a done deal. So examples of that are geotechnical hazards materials survey audio visual. Next slide. When to hire a contractor. So it's after the construction documents have been completed by the architect and we put out information to bid, and you've received multiple bids that you can then compare and review. So contractors would like to be involved earlier, totally fine, but just not committing to them until work. General parting words. So, believe it or not, this is my last slide, but then we'll talk much more indeed in concrete samples about about all of this. I encourage all of you in your building design and construction rehabilitation projects to ask a lot of questions. Don't hesitate to ask for definitions of acronyms and jargon. I'm sure I used. I know I used a lot of jargon in this presentation that may not have been clear and you can definitely ask about that in the q amp a section later. But it is, you know, you are a consumer of these services by architects and engineers and contractors, and you are paying for their expertise but you are paying for them to do the work that and help you understand the work that's being done as well. So maybe some words to always clarify too are like plans and drawings, you want to know if you're referring to the official plans and drawings or the general plans for the day. Always good to clarify. And always as empowering yourself to ask these questions remember you're the one who's going to be using this building on surprise. You're here for the life of it. You're extending by doing this rehabilitation project and your higher professionals are just there for the most part for your project at hand for what you're hiring them for so continue to advocate for yourself and your building by asking questions and keep records. So the drawings are documentations, or any documentation of changes to your building are useful when you go on to the next project because there's pretty much always a next project with a historic one. So you can be more ready for you or whoever comes after you to undertake those if you keep the records. Take photos to record the progress. Everyone loves a before and after, and also it's just fun to see how far you've come. Then the assessment reports refer back to them so any assessment reports you had done may have outlined steps one through 10 of priorities and you were only able to carry out 124 and five. Keep the report so you can go back and see if we still need to do three in five years time, etc. So keep those on hand. They're usually kind of thick books that sit on a shelf just remember where they are and keep a digital copy to. And lastly, return to those internal priorities we talked about in the beginning, reassess them readjust as necessary after every project and after every, every shift in priorities for your building or organization. That is all I hope this presentation is provided a stronger basis for you all to proceed and ask more questions. I hope it created more questions for you. As you move forward with your building projects and feel free to refer back to it will be a copy online and then this checklist that I keep referring to the pre linked is something good to keep around as well. So, next, we are going to talk a little bit about the National Fund and I introduce Allison King from partners for sacred places now. Thank you. Thank you, Olivia. And that was a great presentation. Hello everyone, my name is Allison King. I'm the grandson program manager at partners for sacred places. And I'm here today to provide some information about the National Fund program I work on with Olivia. So the National Fund is a program of partners for sacred places in collaboration with the National Trust for historic preservation. It's graciously funded by the Lilly Endowment of private philanthropic foundation supporting the causes of religion, education and community development. Next slide. Thanks. So you're all very likely to know the trust so I'll tell you a little bit more about partners work as a national fund is a program of partner for sacred places in collaboration with the National Trust. Partners for sacred places was founded in 1989. It's the only non sectarian nonprofit organization dedicated to the sound stewardship and active community use of older historic places across America. We provide capital training and fundraising strategies along with technical assistance and grants to historic houses of worship across the country. The National Fund program is oriented to assist congregations who have assessed their buildings but need external support to locate the financial resources they need to complete their projects and move through the capital campaign phase of their work. To that end, a typical National Fund program timeline looks something like this. We announced those that are awarded entry into the program every October, at which point we hit the ground running with a training program. In the past it was in person but due to COVID we've moved to a virtual format for this foreseeable future. We offer planning grants which are non matching grants of up to $5000 to help folks produce campaign materials, construction drawings and specifications and anything else they need to really set a solid foundation for their large capital project. Then when folks are ready, meaning they've reached the two benchmarks for our capital grant submission stage, then we begin that process with them, which means they've raised a quarter of their matching funds and have permit ready drawings, which our team reviews and approve at which point the first half of the grant award is dispersed. The second half of the grant award is awarded upon the completion of the National Fund scope of work. The timelines will vary by funder but they're worth considering if your project requires external support. So the National Fund training is designed to help congregations successfully complete their capital projects within the two year program deadline. So each cohort is provided free training that covers project planning, crafting a fundraising plan, designing a capital campaign, making the case stakeholders, media strategy, and more. So after the training each congregation as I mentioned is provided with the planning grant but also with the specialized package of partners services tailored to best support each congregation and their needs. So technical assistance services that we provide include case statement review, communication support, capital campaign coaching, community engagement services if you're looking to engage wider stakeholders, project planning or an economic halo effects study, which utilizes a tool that partners developed to quantify the economic impact of a sacred place in order to better communicate their civic value. All of these steps are informed by the building conditions assessment and those pre designed steps, which is why it's key to understanding the totality of your buildings issues and having a plan to communicate that to funders. In terms of the financial support that the National Fund provides, I've already mentioned the planning grants of up to $5,000 which are non matching planning grants and then we have our capital grant funds. So our matching challenge, which is a match for all of our capital grants is designed to incentivize congregations to expand their network of stakeholders and donors and build sustainable connections that the congregation can use to provide for their community well into the future. So each congregation must match our grant dollars for the capital grants with new money raised after their awarded entry into our program. For grants of 50 to $100,000 the match is a one to one for larger grants of 100 to $250,000 it's a grant of two to one match and so the congregation is responsible for raising $2 for every dollar without the award. There's a list of typical eligible matching funds on this slide and you can find more information about our grant eligibility process at our website fund for sacred places.org. Next slide. If you are interested in applying to the grant, the 2022 application timeline will look similar to the 2022 application timeline here on the slide. We'll be posting the 2022 calendar later this fall so be sure to check our website for those exact dates. We'll be opening up our letter of intent process through our online grants management system found it which you can access through our website in January. Full up will be the letters of intent will be due towards the end of February early March. We have a two step application process so folks, you go back one slide. Thank you. So folks need to get their letters of intent in by March 1 or by the end of February. We'll notify folks in June as to what that looks like. We typically go from between 300 applicants to about 30 that we invite for a full application which goes into a little bit more depth. We confer our choices with our advisory committee meeting in September, which is after the full applications are due in July. And then we notify folks if they're awarded into the program in October. Thanks. Next slide. This is a map showing of kind of where all of our grantees have been located so far. We're hoping to expand into states that we haven't yet had grantees, including Arkansas, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Missouri, Mississippi can find the whole list on and more information about the National Fund as well. So at this point I'd like to pass the baton to Mike Bruce who's one of our current National Fund participants from lovely land United Methodist Church in Baltimore. Thanks Alison. It's a pleasure to be here and I also want to thank the National Trust for the opportunity of sharing our rehabilitation story at lovely land Methodist. Private practice architect in Washington DC focusing mostly on residential work with private clients and lifelong Methodist and a member at lovely lane for almost 20 years now. Next slide please. A little bit of background about lovely lane. We were notified in October of 2019 that we had received an invitation to come to the National Fund training, and we're awarded a capital grant of quarter of a million dollars, which we have put to use in our project so today's presentations is to tell you a little bit about our planning process and getting to our project. Next slide please. Lovely Lane you can see there are three images here on the left and exterior view of a Stanford white designed church from 1887 when it was completed. It was designed to be the Centennial monument of the founding of the Methodist denomination in the United States, our congregation traces our roots back to the original 1784 Christmas conference in Baltimore where Francis was elected the first bishop of the American Methodist Church. The middle slide there is of our sanctuary which we in 2004 restored back to some original pink colors and original ceiling for about $2 million. So our church came to this project with some experience. And then on the right is an image of the chapel which is next on the list for our restoration project. Next slide please. We're still an active congregation in the same building obviously. Here you can see some more images. On the left there, a spiral staircase that goes to the chapel balcony and also the balcony of the congregation or excuse me at the sanctuary. Another staircase in the middle there, same staircase but a different view, and then a staircase there on the right for the personage. Next slide please. Some more images of kind of the chapel in the building and at this point I want to tell you a little bit about how we got started. So, we started with forming a business or excuse me a building renovation task force, and there was about 10 members on that task force and just to give you an idea of the talent that that we had, we had two architects, myself and another mechanical engineer. We built the building task force chair was finance person. Of course we had the pastor, we had a lawyer, we had an English teacher, which helped in the DNA study and in catching a lot of grammatical errors, but we were all dedicated people that came together. Next slide please. So the renovation task force started in August of 2017 and we later turned that into what was called the lovely lane 21st century committee after our training in Chicago with the National Fund. In that we had five subcommittees communications committee to get the word out through digital newsletters emails. We had to really go to the church's website and under the publication link see a lot of the digital media that we've put out to the donors and and funding sources. We had an RFP committee which I chaired which was in charge of hiring the architect and owners rep and and working on the design with the architect contracts committee for hiring the contractor administrating that contract. We had a fundraising committee all the way in the beginning because everyone needs money and it really was a veritable public and private sector approach to the capital campaign which Jackie knowler the chair and finance person really headed up and then a community committee, which basically was to find partners in the in the neighborhood. Next slide please. The first was had a charrette and as an architecture student admitted many of these in school comes from the French word for cart. You can see the image on the left there of architecture students, busily putting the final ink work on their drawings as they put it on the cart to go to but what we did was more of a charrette of bringing everybody together in the church. It was again in that committee of 10 and talking about what we needed for our building where we saw our users needing in the building user, you know, building use for us as a is a is an economic thing it helps pay the bills. What did our building offer the Baltimore Sun when the building was open said it was one of the best acoustical spaces in the city. So we knew we had that. And the charrette was answering all those questions and placing ideas in rooms, you know, we had a folk dance society that met they they love using the fellowship hall we we had a gymnasium that was used by after school group. So this charrette really allowed us as the owners to pull all our ideas together to help define the project and we did it before the building's needs assessment, which is the next slide please. So our building needs assessment we we turn to the architect that helped us with the sanctuary renovation and that was Donald con of Walden Studios, and he basically helped us take our charrette materials and our findings, and put it into the building needs assessment and we looked at the building again from HVAC, the need for air conditioning, the need for bathrooms, we literally only had maybe four or five bathrooms in the whole building, and our sanctuary can hold 750 people so that was definitely something to be looked at handicap access was another huge thing. And so this building needs assessment took all of that, and also applied budgets to it, which then helped us to start planning for grants, raising money and so forth. So next slide please. So then we did the RFP process. We, we thank Donald for his time and doing the build building needs assessment and we knew we wanted to interview other architects as well, because we wanted to get the best out there. I helped craft the RFP document that went out to the architects, you know, everything listed here, a project description from the BNA study, what our scope of work was the schedule and budget expectations that we had as an owner. And then we had other qualification statements from those firms. So the resumes are the key people would be working with the experiences with this type of project, asking for similar projects, and most importantly asking for what was the budget you gave the client, and what was the actual cost, and, and what drove that difference. So that was a really important question that need to be answered for for our committee. We're not going to approach the project, were they going to, you know, immediately pull in consultants that were necessary, I mean MEP, are we going to work with an MEP first and then develop the design so on and so forth so project approach is really important. So we asked them to recapitulate what the understanding of the project is back to you. If somebody comes back and says, Well, we're, you know, we're going to put a glass cube in your chapel. They didn't understand the nature of the project. Next slide please. Who's on your team. I want to talk a little bit about this. So ultimately, in the interview that we had with with all three architects that were well qualified. We settled on Walden Studio because they really brought to the table, an unique viewpoint on our project, not only did they know the building, but when we did the interview we asked to not speak to the principal we asked to speak to the project manager in charge. And that really came out from our owners rep cap X, who I'll talk about in a moment. The manager brought to the table for our project was creating a community space which is what we wanted to ultimately do. That was really like a third place Starbucks has really capitalized on this, the notion of it's not home it's not the office, but it's a third place company. So that really struck a lot of people on the committee and and with the previous work experience, Walden was ultimately selected. Prior to that we did engage in owners rep cap X advisory. And they have been invaluable in helping to communicate amongst the committee the architect contractors offering guidance I mean we do have two architects on the on the committee, but the owners rep really brought a lot to it. So obviously the building committee which I've already talked about which is the lovely lane 21st century committee, and then ultimately the contractor and we went through the same RFP process with the contractor and the same interview process. And we ultimately set it on Plano called in to do the first phase of our project we have a multitude of phases ranging from handicap ramp air conditioning and fellowship Paul to Tiffany glass restoration in the in the chapel. Next slide please. So construction phase one a there you go there's our ramp funny story and during construction. We, in order to get a legal ADA ramp. We had to go four inches over into our neighboring property. Funny story, the church used to own that neighboring property back in 1887. We had a goucher who was the pastor created goucher college right around the church. But now it belonged to the lab school of Baltimore, and we had to have the lawyer help us as well as a surveyor, right up a four inch easement agreement believe it or not four inches, but it definitely worked. And, and lab school was a partner in the community because they used our building, and we reached out during this whole process to keep them up to date. The less exciting part but to us very exciting where the bathrooms, you can see some, some images there. Next slide please. It was important to celebrate both in the church and outside the church. So an image here on the upper left is our district superintendent on the left and the bishop of the Baltimore Washington conference, coming preaching and cutting the ribbon for us. And during the church service, having the building committee recognized in front of the congregation so you know celebration is good because it shows everybody were active it shows people that the process is moving forward this is just phase one a and phase one B is going to be coming pretty soon. Next slide to the next steps. You know the chapel here is ready for restoration, like, like the sanctuary you can see some of the historic windows, the Tiffany windows are the clear story windows all the way at the top there. We designed after some Roman mosaics, and then some more stained glass there so that is all actually phase one be if I remember correctly is next is the windows. And then adding air conditioning to our fellowship all to increase building use and for our own use. And then ultimately, really, we as a congregation take seriously the nature of being stewards for this building. And so, through this process, we've been able to do that. And just what I mentioned quickly Jackie Nolar has joined the panel as well. And if people do have more questions beyond, you know, just kind of what I presented but even on the financial side Jackie is, has done a wonderful job and can talk more about the kind of fundraising effort if people are interested. And that concludes my portion of the panel I believe. Yeah, everyone. If everyone else wants to hop on camera. There are a couple that came in on the in the Q&A. Some of them, I think a lot of these might be for Olivia but I think the rest of you might have input as well. I think that was about the timeline and the question is wondering generally how long will the project cycle be considering the relatively longer pre design process. Hi, yes. Unfortunately, I can't really provide a very good answer to that. And Mike actually might be able to talk about this too because of his experience with non preservation projects as well but I will say it's super dependent on what you need from the pre design and then how big your building is, and then also what the capacity of the architect that you end up hiring is for how it can go. Yeah, what do you think Mike. Yeah, I agree. You know synopsis I mean for us just we started in August of 2017 did our building needs assessment the pre design was quite a bit of the actual work. We only hired Walden, you know, I think they had CDs done in three to four months and then construction obviously was much further along there but the pre design part was the largest part for us. Yeah, I think. Yeah, we think I think putting time into pre design is really just the important aspect of it and then the construction process, the construction documentation process could be longer depending on the complexity of the project you choose based on this pre design studies. I hope that answers the question. Another sort of process question at what point you usually test for environmental slash dangerous talks. Yeah, so that's going to be on your front end as well, you're going to have a hazardous materials study depends on the era of your building as well when it was built. But, you know, it's I think 1970 is the lead paint cut off you want to be testing for that and testing for asbestos and a lot of contractors and even architects will stipulate that that needs to be done before they enter the building to survey it. So, you may need to commission that before the in person assessment of your building happens by the architecture design professional. Yes, so early early. So, when there are patients during construction, is it important to include as built plans during instruction and reading the comment. You know as built plans are always a good idea if you have time and can afford them and contractor willing to do them, especially because like I was saying it'll inform your next project. And they can be as informal as markups, you know, with the color pencil on the final plans that the contractor was doing. If you have major modifications during construction you should try to document those as much as possible through so your contractor may be doing that through like a formal request for information process where you're submitting sketches and drawings. And that should all be laid out the process for making modifications during construction should all be laid out in your contract for construction with the contractor. I think that way contracts is a great place to look for this too because they lay out the basic, most commonly practiced version of that. Yeah, this might be a cool thing as part of that and it might be my part in not really knowing architectural stuff but can you explain what as built plans are compared to the other plans. You might have mentioned that earlier but it might be good to just read. I think it's basically it's what actually happened at the end of construction documented in plan. And sometimes it's just like oh we actually put the toilet a foot to the left. But other times it's like no this entire plan didn't work and we have to redesign it during construction. And if we do more design and more pre design is to avoid things like that right but it's, if something unknown came up during construction and you had to sort of re navigate around it, re navigate read to get around it and find a new solution. That's when big changes are going to happen. So, as built plans often will happen after the construction is completely finished and you want to go back and kind of update the set that you started construction with. I think this is a question for a lovely lane on by Alicia is asking this main have been said but it's the church historic landmark for the city. If not, then making a landmark have a place in the conversation for the process. Great question. We actually are a landmark in both the city state and on the National Register of Historic Places. So, we're definitely a market we were landmarks well before this project, however, there's kind of another side story to this that's kind of important, and it came part. One of our rehabilitation story is partnered with the Maryland Historical Trust, and part of that partnership was a 15 year I believe easement on the building, an exterior easement, and that enabled us to get some grant monies for some of the window and so that again that was one of the places where the lawyer on the committee really was was a big help in writing some part of that grant and working us through what that easement actually meant. However, it does not mean that you can just go forward on anything unrelated to your design project if it's going to touch the exterior the building during the duration of that easement so it's a partnership for a long term with the preservation advocacy governmental group that I think is in the best interest of the property, because it was built for one reason and it's not going to become condos or whatever, at least during the easement period, after the investment of the government agency to keep rehabilitation front and center, and not repurposing. That's what you guys have with that too because a lot of times designation is seen as limitations, but for you it was opportunity for funding. And if you're not because this is a basics webinar I also want to say if you're not familiar with easements, we have a lot of resources related to this on preservation leadership form if you just in the search bar. And the website for forum is forum dot saving places.org. We also have a bunch of different stories about recent easements we put on places like the Nina Simone house and couple of places do a really good job of explaining how valuable they are and why they're critical pieces of preservation. It's a really good preservation tool that you should consider if you can, but I'll try and include some of that in the follow up email to this webinar because I'm talking right now will be hard for me to drop in the chat. So, there's a quick question about design build that I see there and actually I have some information about that in the checklist but generally I don't recommend it for historic buildings unless this design builds entity that's combined is really experienced with it. And just because the priorities are not always in line as far as schedule cost between preservation and getting something built really quickly. So, the answer to a design build question is proceed with caution and check and recheck qualifications and make sure you have people experienced with historic properties. You can't see the Q&A panel, because I'm not sure if the audience can but someone saying you seem to be saying do not contract with a design bill contractor, if they will not separate the two disciplines. And it's kind of what I'm saying but I've seen it work and I've seen it really not work. And then we have this perfect timing with one more question. And you might not be able to answer them here but we can also collect and put it in the recording list afterwards but I may have missed this but do you know of any funding sources or grants for pre construction assessments, since they can be costly. There are sources I think National Trust has our preservation funds are a great source for assessments and you can find that on preservation leadership forum and we can drop that in. Yeah, and now the link I posted earlier about where you sign up for updates that's also where all the information about National Trust grants are as well. It's basically form.savingplaces.org and if you go to the build tab, it'll be a button that says find funding. I recommend that folks take a look to see if their local government is a certified local government because in many states, they'll also have planning grants available to folks to do some of that project planning. We also took advantage of a $5,000 grant from National Trust for our pre planning BNA study. We also include a $5,000 planning grant you have the national funds so we see the value of that with our program and hopefully other funders will also get on board. I'm not sure maybe maybe someone on the panel knows if the Getty is still doing their planning grants as well. I'm not sure but they kind of focus more on modern things these days but it may be helpful for someone in the chat. Yeah. So we have a couple of closing things is there no more questions so we're just going to then close this out. So first I'm going to hit enter on this chat. So there's actually a number of ways for you to keep talking form connect is our online community it's free and open to everyone. And so feel free to join I am actually the community manager so you'll see my name all over the place. But welcome please join us. And we also have a variety of webinars going forward but we're forum webinars were sort of in planning for the fall. We do have these three password pre conference workshops. They're 90 minutes long they're going to be great. Rhonda who's been writing the slideshow is the one who's been organizing it, and they've got an amazing group of people on a the registration links are on preservation leadership form but they're also on the conference website, which I'm just posting a whole bunch of links for you to try and save real quick. But I'll also include this in the follow up email to everyone as well but we hope you will join us for that and the conference because early bird registration is open right now. And finally thank you for joining us today we're really glad that you're able to come I hope it was useful. So I'll be sharing all the information in the follow up email, please fill out the survey that pops up when you sign off. And thank you to Olivia Allison, Michael and Jacqueline for joining us today. And if you need to reach us we are at forum at saving places.org. Thank you.