Dear saints,

Over Saturday and Sunday of this past weekend a good number of the saints dedicated a lot of time to our work on the block. On Saturday, an all-hands gathering of the vestry, the Egleston task force, and the block development committee met for 4 hours to talk through multiple elements of our work. It is a tremendous gift to All Saints’ that we have such a deep bench of talent and commitment in this church. Between them, these teams have parishioners whose professional background is in architecture and design firms, in engineering and the construction industry, in real estate law, finance and real estate development, and plenty beyond.

In other words, as much as we utilize the professional expertise of firms outside of All Saints’, we are blessed to be able to approach the complex questions before us with a running start. Saturday’s meeting also enabled us to draw upon the expertise we have in managing our buildings and grounds via the excellent work of our buildings and grounds committee and finance committee. The presence of their leadership on the block teams allows us to place the work ahead of us with Egleston into the larger context of the needs of our whole campus. It is a thorough and careful process, and I am deeply thankful for all of the hours that your fellow parishioners are pouring into this work. 

On Sunday morning, at a packed Ellis Hall forum following the 9:00 a.m. service, we were able to share a lot of great detail from the conditions assessment that has been carried out on the Egleston building. If you were not able to be there, you can watch the video of the forum here.

The first part of the forum covered a review of the damage the Egleston building suffered following a drop of up to 40 feet in the water table on our block due to dewatering caused by construction that happened in the neighborhood. Briley Brisendine, our senior warden, described the ways by which Egleston had settled differentially 8 inches across the width of the building causing cracks we can see on the exterior of the building, and cracks that had been visible on the interior before we had done some aesthetic work to make the library more presentable.

Where the staff has experienced the impact of this damage has been in doors that have been unable to be closed or secured, uneven floors, and in one case recently, the collapse of a ceiling into a staff member’s office. Briley also noted how we had reached a settlement with the parties involved and that there now exists a fund which was reported at the 2025 annual meeting of the parish, with a current balance of a little over $7.5 million which the vestry has set aside to contribute to the cost of Egleston construction work. 

Sheldon Taylor then walked us through some of the detail of the work that would be required to repair the damage the building has undergone. It was noted that this repair work and the $7.5 million we have in the fund set aside would not be sufficient also to address the existing needs the Egleston building had before the damage occurred with regards to the state of the roof, windows, exterior and interior walls, electrical, HVAC systems and so on. It would also be insufficient to bring the building up to code. 

The chair of the buildings and grounds committee, Danny Johnson, was then able to offer a review of a prioritized list of capital improvement needs across the church campus. He noted the complexity of the needs we have including nearly 50 HVAC systems, roofs, windows, electrical systems and a whole lot more. The building and grounds committee does diligent work year after year, making sure that we tackle the needs of our campus according to the priorities both of the physical plant and of our programs as a parish church. The committee’s assessment of the 40 of so items on the capital improvement list is that around $3 million of investment might be needed across the campus, not including Egleston, and due to some welcome repairs to the roof of the Pritchett Center, the $3 million estimated to install a new roof for that building has been determined to be an expenditure we can wait on for another decade or so.

Meg Fogel, who is a co-chair of the Egleston task force, then walked us through the various investments Egleston Hall would need in order to bring the building up to current day code compliances, ranging from ADA access including the need for an elevator, increasing the number and accessibility of restrooms, energy compliance, lead and asbestos abatement, and other items. 

The forum then noted that there are three main scenarios that the task force is studying: 

• one that would preserve the Egleston building as it currently is 
• another that would build an entirely new building on the site 
• and a third that would be an adaptive reuse project that would preserve some of the existing building as well as engage in new construction. 

There is a great deal of work still ahead of us to be able to arrive at a decision about which scenario to pursue. I know that in any kind of project like this there are people who are convinced that decisions have already been made. Given that we are dealing meticulously with the stewardship of this church that we treasure and the resources entrusted to us, nothing could be farther from the truth. This is incredibly painstaking and complex work. If we knew the answer to all this already we could save everyone a great deal of time and effort. To name what I have named before: no decision has been made.

The next steps for the task force are to continue to work with our architects, Perkins&Will, and our general contractor, Hodges & Hicks, to assess each of the above scenarios for Egleston, looking very carefully at how programming needs might work in each, as well as how each scenario might relate to existing buildings on the block, and what each would cost, testing those item by item to make sure they are as grounded in current and projected market conditions as possible.

Next up for the parish is the opportunity to join a tour of Egleston Hall on Sunday, April 26, led by members of the task force so people can see the condition of Egleston first-hand. I hope you can join. We will also be posting a video of the same so you can tour virtually. 

As we go along in this process, we will be adding documents to the website. We want you to study with us and if you are interested in getting into more detail about some of the above, please do take a look at our document library on the church’s website: https://allsaintsatlanta.org/futureofourblock/. 

Among those documents are:

• The powerpoint presentations made at the two most recent parish forums:
• Sunday March 22, 2026 led by Perkins and Will 
• Sunday April 19, 2026 led by the Egleston task force and block development committee 
• The campus master plan approved by the vestry in 2025
• The full campus assessment of our buildings and grounds carried out in 2019 by Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates, Inc.

All of this careful and methodical work that is being carried out with regards to our buildings and grounds is important and necessary, and yet, we remain clear as a church about our vocation: that this is a place where life will thrive because of who we are as a faithful people of God. Our vision remains that All Saints’ will be a beacon of hope for the decades ahead of us because of our commitment to open new doors to the life we share here and to the hope we know in Christ Jesus. We have a profound gift as stewards of this church, let us open our doors wide for the world to receive it. 

Peace,