Building Fund

Building Renovation Plans

In the fall of 2004, MVUC conducted a capital campaign that produced commitments of about $1,280,000, of which $1,065,000 has been collected. About $300,000 of that was used for renovation of Hollin Hall, minor improvements to other buildings, and fund-raising expenses. Another $320,000 was spent to prepare construction documents and obtain County approvals. $4,800 was used to construct a stained glass window, intended to be eventually installed in the building addition and currently on display in the Commons. Recently, $15,000 was used to install eleven reinforced sod parking spaces around the circle in front of Hollin Hall. The remaining $440,000 is invested pending further action.

Planned construction included a meeting room entry, expanded commons, and renovated offices, kitchen, and restrooms. The available funds, even if most of the as-yet uncollected commitments were received, would not be sufficient to cover the costs. The project would have required borrowing a substantial sum. In 2007, when faced with a go/no-go decision, we realized that our budget could not be stretched to cover debt service on the required mortgage. Accordingly, the building project was put on hold.

During 2009, several congregational meetings were held to explore the feasibility of restarting the building process. We decided then that we had to complete at least two very successful stewardship campaigns before we could consider restarting the process. Unfortunately, while we got good results in the Spring 2010 stewardship campaign, falling wedding revenues due to the economic recession created an unexpected hole in our budget. The recent Revisit Campaign filled that hole, but did not provide enough of a cushion to allow us to take on debt service at this time.

In early 2011, the Board of Trustees plans to hold a series of meetings for interested people to further weigh our building renovation options. The major decision to be reached is to continue to defer action until we can launch a major renovation or to proceed with smaller-scale projects that can at least partially remedy the shortcomings of the existing facilities. Chief among these are a Commons that is inadequately sized for post-service coffee hours and kitchen and restroom spaces that could use some attention. In either case, we might consider another capital campaign to increase the available capital funds and reduce the required borrowing.

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