The Rock Community Church

Client Need

After 11 years of operating in a renovated and expanded YMCA building, the Rock of Southwest Church (now Rock Community Church) had reached maximum capacity of 1,200 weekly attenders. The main worship auditorium (former gymnasium) could only accommodate 390 seats and a second venue in the expanded area, comprising 250 seats, never allowed overall attendance to significantly grow as they had hoped. When the opportunity to merge with another church that owned 8 acres of undeveloped land, they could not resist the opportunity to merge and redevelop this site.

The Rock merged with Belleview Community Church (BCC) and expanded at 12472 West Belleview Avenue in Littleton, CO.

Coffee Bar
Worship

Assignment Highlights

  • CFS was hired to provide complete A to Z services including strategic planning, site selection, site planning, entitlements, team selection, design and engineering, construction, AVL, FF&E and move coordination.
  • CFS also acted the Seller’s Agent, successfully selling the church’s facility at 10393 W Alamo Place in Littleton, CO.

Results

  • Successfully completed a rezoning, known as a “Special Use” process, with 2 contentious neighborhood meetings. CFS processed the Site Development Plan as the church’s advocate and completed a merger of two separate land parcels comprising 9.5 acres.
  • Renovation of the existing BCC 14,600 SF building for use as the Rock’s offices and youth ministry area.
  • 40,000 SF ground-up construction including a 9,000 SF worship center, 10,000 SF of new classroom space, a 6,500 SF lobby and coffee lounge area, and a 5,250 SF basement area for future adult classrooms and overflow meeting space.

Project Schedule

  • Due to unprecedented Jefferson County caseloads, the entitlement process delays caused the project to start 90 days late. But with careful planning, CFS and the project professionals were able to complete the project within 60 days of the original target date.

Project Cost Savings

  • CFS successfully used the neighbors’ concerns about the parking lot lighting to reduce the number of parking lot light poles and parking lot islands required by the County, which resulted in savings of approximately $75,000.
  • The municipality originally indicated they would only allow one access point off of Belleview Avenue. Furthermore, they were going to require the church to build a median with turn lanes into the church.  CFS worked with the project engineer to prepare a design that convinced the authorities to allow two access points and install a right-in/right-out pork chop in lieu of the median, resulting in savings of approximately $50,000sf.
  • The General Contractor had requested bids from three contractors for each trade, but only received one electrical bid on bid day. That bid was significantly higher than the electrical budget.  CFS was able to bring another electrical contractor to the general contractor to bid the project.  The result was approximately $82,000 savings.
  • The lighting consultant for the design team had specified a light package that was over budget. CFS used the light package as a design standard and solicited pricing from other lighting vendors, which provided a revised, quality light package and savings of approximately $108,000.
  • After the second referral process with for the Site Development Plan, the jurisdiction indicated that they would be charging the church $60,000 for differed costs related off-site improvements at the property. This had not been disclosed during the Special Use Permit process or in previous referral comments.  CFS successfully challenged the costs and the county reduced the cost to $36,000; a savings of $24,000.
  • CFS recommended that the church contract directly with the demolition and abatement contractors, rather than running this through the general contractor. This resulted in savings of $15,000.
  • To remove the export soils from the site was estimated to cost $130,000. CFS contacted multiple earthwork contractors in the area, as well as working with contacts with the church to find a better solution.  The team was able to find a project right down the road from the new church, who was willing to take the soils for $40,000, resulting in a savings of $90,000.

Other Notable Accomplishments

  • The municipality originally required 40% of the site to be landscaped, which would have limited the number of parking spaces to 488. CFS successfully negotiated for the municipality to honor the same setbacks and landscaping requirements as the neighbor, which resulted in fifty more parking spaces.  The added parking had a direct correlation on the number of seats that could be in the worship center.
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