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CMSJ
New Building Project
A Letter from the CMSJ
Board to the members of the Chinmaya Mission Community
Donate
Online to the CMSJ New Building Fund
New
Building Project – Details
The
Need for a Facility
Chinmaya
Vision – A Commitment to Excellence
As Bala
Vihar enrollment and
attendance at events grows, the Chinmaya vision - “to provide
maximum
happiness, to the maximum (number of) people, for the maximum
time” - continues
to inspire the entire Chinmaya Mission San Jose community. In the midst
of
increasing challenges, our commitment to excellence remains strong as
ever. It
is quite evident that the present Sandeepany San jose Facility is not
adequate
to support needs of our activities: Balavihar, Yagnas, Pujas &
Festivals.
Our need for a new facility emerges from this situation.
New
Building Plan & Status
We
started the New Building
project on Maha Shivarathri in 2006 and acquired the property - an old
church -
on 10160 Clayton Road in San Jose, in January
2008 (2
buildings, ~11,000 sq ft total, 1.7 acres) at a cost of $2.6M and are
in the
process of building a new ashram from the ground up on the property.
Architectural plans for the new ashram have been approved by the City
of San
Jose and we have been granted a Planned Development permit.
Construction
drawings are being worked on, which will be reviewed by the City and
this will
culminate in obtaining a Building permit that will help us commence
construction.
Current Status ( Updated Nov 14, 2011)
This message is to inform everyone about the status of
the new building - prior to the summer break, we had indicated that the
architectural design had been completed and approved, we were in the
midst of discussions with banks on securing a bank loan, and we were
looking forward to the ground breaking ceremony in July in the presence
of Pujya Guruji.
As many of you might know, we completed a very
auspicious ground breaking ceremony in the presence of Pujya Guruji
Swami Tejomayananda in July.
Through the summer we have been working
closely with the architect, banks and contractors to finalize our
building plans but the initial bids came in significantly above the
original projected cost.
In order to keep our projected construction
costs under control, based on our guidance, our architect made some
minor modifications to the original proposal. We are awaiting the
Revised Planned Development (PD) Permit from the city before final
construction drawings are completed and submitted for a Building
Permit. With final construction plans we expect more accurate bids
while we wait for building permit.
In parallel, we're talking to many lenders through a
couple of mortagage brokers. Although the banks actually keen to move
quickly, but we're proceeding at a pace that is tracking the timing to
the city approvals.
So, in
summary, the sequence of events that need to occur before we can start
construction are the following:
1. Receiving PD permit from the city
2. Validating that estimated construction
bids are in the ball park of our projections
3. Submitting final construction drawing for
a building permit
4. Getting more accurate construction bids
based on the final construction bids and, in parallel, securing the
bank loan.
With the support of the broad community
over the past months and years and with God Grace, Pujya Gurudev's and
Pujya Guruji's blessings we expect the construction to begin in
Q2 2012 timeframe. So, towards that end, on behalf of CMSJ and our
Acharya Br. Prabodhji, some of us will be reaching out to you for your
help to raise funds over the next many months.
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Floor Plan Upper |
Site Plan Lower |
Site Plan Upper
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