The primary focus of the plan is to expand and improve our ability to better serve and equip our CPC community through our weekday ministries, although the plan will also include certain improvements to the Sanctuary.

One of the constraints in achieving our Purpose is the present size and capacity of our facilities. Our current ministries for students are hindered by the current facilities in their mission to attract and retain our youth. Our shortage of meeting rooms restrains the expansion of many of our church ministries including women's, men's, seniors, etc. We are presently limited in the number of community groups which can meet on our campus which we believe is an important outreach to the surrounding community. Our limited parking discourages newcomers from visiting the worship services and special events and creates pressure on weekday activities particularly when school is in session. The present access to our campus forces traffic into the surrounding neighborhood and causes safety concerns for vehicles exiting from the main entrance.

We are taking this step to not only respond to our current needs but to provide for future generations at CPC.

Weekly contributions have been strong in the past 18 months. With the exception of two months during 2007, CPC giving has exceeded our contribution goals. CPC operates on a faith budget and we base our contribution goals on our historical giving patterns throughout the year. We ended the 2006/2007 fiscal year $361,600 ahead of the annual contribution goal, and are ahead of our contribution goal through the first nine months of fiscal 2008.

We believe God is calling us to equip our community to spread the love of Christ to the San Ramon Valley and beyond. This space will support ministry that will cause many to come to faith, grow in that faith and be trained and equipped as future leaders. We believe there is opportunity for God to leverage these funds over the next generations and expect our church, our community and the world to be changed as a result of the improved and expanded ministries that will result from the new facilities.

We have wrestled and prayed about the timing of the capital campaign for some time. We have spoken with many people in our congregation related to the impact of the economy on them and we recognize that there is clearly uncertainty in the economy. Whatever the economic situation, it is certain that the outcome is in God's hands. We have prayed over this matter and we collectively sense God's calling to move forward and to trust in Him. Given these circumstances we are stepping out in faith on the timing of this campaign and we will give God all the glory.

From an economic point of view there may be some good news as there is some evidence that construction costs have softened due to the slowdown in residential construction. The selected contractor (Bogard Construction) believes that taking the project to bid in early 2009 may result in lower construction costs than previously forecasted. Additionally, concluding the campaign this fall will allow construction to commence after the rainy season in 2009 and make the best use of the summer months. Also, this is a three year program and most economists are forecasting a recovery in the early part of that period.

The Session (which turns over every third year) has been an integral part of the facility improvement planning process over the past eight years. The current Session reviewed and approved the final plans on January 12, 2008. Their motion was to approve a building program not to exceed $15 Million including $500,000 for Missions, and not to incur any additional long term debt as part of the program.

The CPC Facility Improvement Plans were approved by the Town Design Review Board on January 10, 2008, and subsequently by the Planning Commission on March 11, 2008 by a vote of 5 to 1. Following these approvals, State law allows a ten day appeal period which expired on March 21 without any appeals filed. CPC will need to return to the Town Design Review Board with minor architectural and landscaping details in the next several months prior to obtaining a building permit.

The Town approval included a total of 98 conditions to which CPC has agreed. The majority of these conditions are standard requirements which apply to any project of this size in the Town. Only 12 conditions are specific to CPC. Without listing all 12, examples include an increase in the maximum population at SRVCA (400) and the Preschool (102), implementation of traffic management and parking plans including a traffic management committee with our neighbors to monitor parking and traffic issues, closure of Pavilion doors between the hours of 9PM and 7AM, etc.

The missions component will include one local project to help renovate and create a Christian school in the tenderloin district of San Francisco as well as two international projects. One of the international projects will be to help develop a school and orphanage with Children of Grace in Jinja, Uganda. The other will focus on lifting a Bulgarian Gypsy village out of poverty with Macedonia Outreach. The Missions plan is to fund these projects with $500,000 and involve as many CPC members as possible. The session has determined that the missions projects should be among the first projects that are funded and will not be reduced if fewer funds are actually raised.

While there may be sufficient square footage today for the immediate needs of Student Ministries, the space that Student Ministries uses under the sanctuary for all of its programs was never designed or intended to be used for large groups. Numerous concrete pillars that support the sanctuary break up the room and make visibility and effective presentation difficult. On our biggest nights, especially on parent nights, we pack the room to capacity.

We must look beyond our present ministry to the needs of students in our valley that have not been reached (there are 13,000 students in junior and high schools in San Ramon Valley of which less than 10% have been reached).We believe that God is calling us to do more to reach out to them with the truth and love of Jesus Christ, so we need to be more effective with a space designed with them in mind. The leadership of our church has established the goal of tripling the number of youth disciples at CPC by 2015. Our present space, in terms of its effectiveness and layout, as well as size, would not support us in attaining that goal.

We are planning to create a new space that will be inviting to students; a space that will communicate the value and priority we put on their generation. The new Great Room, which will be used for many other ministries as well, will be an ideal, bright, open space for our weekend and midweek programs. A new Youth Activity Center will also provide a youth-friendly space that we imagine becoming an inviting destination for students after school and an ongoing opportunity for our leaders to connect with the lives of students in meaningful ways.

That space will be reconfigured into multiple meeting rooms for children and adults. This usage is more consistent with its previous use and is an effective plan for utilizing both the old and new space.

We have focused this project on the needs of our total membership with a special focus on families and the next generation. We will have significantly better space for our children's and youth programs. We are also increasing the enrollment for the Academy and will be able to provide a Christian education for more children. One of the Academy's priorities is to provide an extended day kindergarten and these plans will support that need. Our Youth Activity Center and Great Room will demonstrate to the students of this valley that we care about them and want them to have a great meeting and worship location. Our new nursery and toddler rooms will demonstrate to young families that we care about them and their children and will provide a safe, age appropriate location for them to meet.

Children's Ministries currently shares its classroom space with the Academy and the Pre School. The only dedicated space it has is its administrative offices and the nursery. While this works on week-ends when our schools are not in session, there is no more space available to provide ministry for children during the week.

In the new plan, we will build a new nursery and toddler room as well as three classrooms that will be used by children's ministries during the week. This will meet Children's Ministries week-day requirements.

These same spaces can be used for week-end Children's programs so the only shared space that will be required in the future is the Pre School rooms. These other classrooms will also be used for adult equipping classes or meetings.

We have a planning team that is reviewing the set up of the original Chapel and are looking for ways to recreate an enhanced worship space. The library and book store will be moved to the offices on the north side of the multi-purpose room. This space is equal to the size of the current location and is located on the plaza by the Video Café. This location is more visible and these ministries are excited about their future possibilities.

Without the home campus CPC@T would not be able to function. The membership of CPC@T will benefit from our new facilities during those other six days just as the rest of our congregation will.

CPC@T must grow in a number of ways before it is ready to build and support a permanent facility.

During the eight year planning stage, several studies were completed that collected the requirements from all the ministries each of which has had considerable input to the planning. Even though in order to gain Town approval we removed the two story parking structure and the equipping building on the east side of the campus from the project, we believe the new facilities will meet most of the needs of all the ministries.

We have struggled in recent years to provide an all weather location to support fellowship time after the services. We have used tents on the north patio but this has been difficult because the space is small and cannot be used if it is cold, hot or raining. While we do live in sunny California, many times the weather isn't conducive to outdoor fellowship. As we plan the use of the space we are adding, we are learning that the Fellowship Pavilion will find many additional uses by the ministries.

Considerable time and planning effort was spent in attempting to use the Ministry Center as a part of the Fellowship Pavilion. Differences in floor elevations and circulation patterns led the planning group to conclude that the building could not be feasibly integrated into the pavilion and plaza. In addition, the current ministry center was built 25 years ago and has been the source of considerable maintenance cost in the last few years.

CPC currently has a total of 330 spaces on site; however that number is reduced to 242 during school days as the Academy uses a portion of the north parking lot for a play field. There are 49 additional parking spaces provided in the plan largely due to the new south lot and 59 additional spaces during school days. The 10 additional spaces will be provided by re-striping the north lot and relocating the Academy play field.

In addition to the on-site increase, we have secured agreements with five banks along Diablo Road which provide 226 additional off-site spaces on weekends. While we can always use additional parking, we believe the combination of on and off site parking particularly during school days will improve our capacity.

The present main entrance to the campus on the west side of the parking lot will be closed and replaced by a new entrance closer to the new Youth Center and Sanctuary. Upon entering the campus, there will be an extended drop off area adjacent to the plaza.

There will be no net increase space devoted to administration as each of these activities will be relocated from their existing facilities.

Our original hope was to gain the approval of the Town of Danville in late 2007 and start the campaign in the spring of 2008. With several concerns expressed by the neighborhood, the approval process required additional meetings and work with Town staff. It became clear in late 2007 that approval would not be reached until spring of 2008 at which time CPC leadership made the decision to reschedule the campaign following final Town approval.

While we have no current intention to separate from our denomination, were we to consider that in the future, we would hope to be successful in retaining the use of the property. Title to the property is held by Community Presbyterian Church of Danville. However, the Book of Order for the denomination states that property is held in trust for the use and benefit of PC (USA), and cannot be sold, financed or improved without the express approval of PC (USA).

There have been Churches which have left the denomination with a release from PC (USA). A recent case occurred in Sacramento where their Presbytery granted Fair Oaks Presbyterian Church their request to leave and take their property with them. Lawsuits have been filed over this matter. However, the case law is mixed but the trend seems to be swinging in favor of the local churches. We do not believe concern over property ownership should prevent CPC from investing in its future ministry.

In the event that insufficient funds are raised to complete the entire project, we will need to defer certain elements of the plan until additional funds are raised. Funds raised in excess of $15 million will be held apart from the annual operating budget and be used as directed by the Session.

There will be a need to secure construction financing as not all contributions pledged will be collected prior to completion of construction. The construction financing will be fully retired when the pledged contributions are collected. The Session approval to proceed included a requirement that no permanent financing would be secured for the project.

We are currently estimating a 15-18 month construction period. This month, we expect to execute contracts with the project architect, engineer and landscape architect to commence the next phase of drawing preparation. We anticipate that this phase will take 6-8 months and allow filing for a building permit at year end or early 2009. We would then be in a position to commence construction in the spring of 2009.

The current estimates have been prepared by one of the leading commercial contractors in the Bay Area with an anticipated early 2009 construction start. While we anticipate that changes will be encountered once working drawing are complete and during the course of construction, we have included adequate contingencies to cover unanticipated increases.

We anticipate some increase in costs attributable to the new facilities. These costs will be funded from regular giving which we believe will increase with expanded ministries and activity at CPC.

Scripture teaches that we are called not merely to tithe, but at times to make offerings in addition to the tithe for God's work. For example, in Malachi 3 the prophet makes it clear that we are a people who gives tithes AND offerings. The tithe was set forth early on as the minimum standard for honoring God. It is true that giving to expand our facilities for the ministry of CPC will require more than is already given to the church. In fact, it will require sacrifice from all of us. We are simply asking everyone to pray so that each of us can discover what God would have us do, what God would have us give, for the growing ministry of CPC. The facility expansion is about creating greater “tools” for changing lives in the name of Jesus.

We have been working on a facilities plan since 1999 when the Town of Danville asked us to prepare master plan for the future of CPC. In that process we have made numerous changes to the plan to accommodate the concerns of the neighbors as well as gain approval of the Town of Danville. We believe the plan finally approved is one which can accommodate our immediate needs and provide a foundation for future ministry growth at CPC.

Having a campus that is a central location out of which ministry can flow is a best case scenario for effective ministry in our fast-paced world. The facilities plan that has been created is really a ministry plan for CPC. This plan has been created to maximize our ability to impact the community for Jesus Christ. We have considered whether it would be best to rent space for ministries, however we concluded that an off campus location wouldn't allow us to fulfill our ministry objectives in the most effective manner. Off site space close to our campus is not only very expensive but carries problems of coordination, usage permits, safety, child care issues, etc. Additionally it is an inefficient use of space because it becomes dedicated to a single use and is not easily used by other ministries as is space on our main campus. Through much prayer and work it is believed having ministry contained on our current campus is the most effective plan for ministry.

Yes. Details will be available closer to the time of construction.