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1: At the end of 2023, the Congregation approved the funding and financing for the building of the Hope South Campus Worship Center of approximately 18,372 sf with an approved budget not to exceed $8,000,000.
2: Based on the approved budget, Judd Dickerson of Dickerson Architects of Leesburg was authorized by the Church Council to prepare design development drawings for the Worship Center based on the schematic design and renderings approved by the Congregation.
3: In June 2024, the City of Wildwood approved the final site plan for the Hope South Campus Worship Center.
4: In June 2024, the Church Council approved Mark Cook Builders, Inc of Leesburg, Florida as the Contractor/Construction Manager for the new Hope South Campus Worship Center. This builder has done extensive work in The Villages, including work projects for North Lake Presbyterian Church and New Covenant United Methodist Church and the construction of the Lake Deaton United Methodist Church.
5: Under the construction contract, Mark Cook Builders is responsible for developing construction costs related to the Hope South Campus Worship Center and the site development work associated with the Worship Center (grading, drainage, utilities, parking areas and access roads.) The budget for this entire work is $6,000,000. If the actual costs from bids exceed this amount, Hope has the right to terminate the construction contract unless another amount is mutually agreed to.
6: In July 2024, Judd Dickerson completed the revised design development drawings and was authorized to start the construction documents phase.
7: Hope Lutheran Church received conditional approval from the Villages Design Review Committee for the revised design development drawings at the end of September 2024.
8: In November 2024, the construction documents for the Worship Center were finalized by Judd Dickerson and his consultants. These construction documents were sent to pre-qualified subcontractor bidders by Mark Cook Builders with the anticipation that the bids would be returned in January 2025.
9: On January 27, 2025, Hope representatives met with representatives of Mark Cook Builders and Judd Dickerson to review the status of the bidding process.
10: The present status of the bidding process is as follows:
a. All bids have not been received, and the subcontractors have been slow in returning bids. According to Mark Cook Builders, the reasons for the delay include (i) the holiday season; (ii) subcontractors in The Villages area are extremely busy; and (iii) with many work projects in The Villages area, subcontractors are very selective in their choices of projects.
b. Bid requests have been sent to over 75 subcontractors. Unfortunately, about 1/3 of these subcontractors have not yet responded and several indicated no interest in the project or were too busy to become involved. Finally, for several of the scopes of work, there have been no responses to date.
c. For some of the major scopes of work, one bid has been returned although the drawings were sent to 2 to 3 subcontractors in that work area. More responses are needed to have competitive bidding.
d. Preliminary observations about the bids received to date, which are in the process of being fully reviewed and analyzed, indicate (i) bids for major scopes of work (concrete, timber mechanical, electrical, plumbing) have come in much higher than expected, which has surprised Mark Cook Builders and Judd Dickerson; and (ii) although our contractor and architect will work actively to identify costs savings, it is anticipated that the total final figures will be beyond the budget approved by the Congregation.
11: The Immediate plan of action, which has already been implemented from our meeting with the contractor and architect, includes the following:
a. Contact subcontractors who have not responded to ascertain level of interest or concern.
b. Seek bids from additional subcontractors.
c. Review the bids received to (i) determine scope compliance; (ii) identify “overages”, “inflated values” and “extras”; (iii) identify and eliminate “top of the line” expense items; and (iv) locate items that can be revised/eliminated.
d. Dialogue with the bidders to revise/streamline bids.
e. Engage in “value engineering” to look for potential cost savings (building systems, equipment, and materials) without compromising functions and quality.
12: We are allocating approximately a month to evaluate current bids, seek new bids and do cost savings evaluations. At that time, we hope the information from this bid process will be complete enough to allow us to make decisions as we move forward.
13: As this review and analysis of the bids continues, we will continue to move forward on other aspects of the project. Mark Cook Builders has applied for a building permit from Sumter County. Preliminary comments have been received from Sumter County and reviewed by Judd Dickerson. There are no major concerns with the comments received from Sumter County and this dialogue will continue until the building permit process is finalized.
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