I'm glad you asked!

Answer: Well, I can understand why you ask, but no there is no mistake. This building has a lot of unique features and thanks for asking.

What you are seeing, and it can be seen if you look carefully at the plans displayed in the information center on the plan of the first floor, is a feature to make getting around in inclement weather a little bit easier. It is called a Loggia, which is a fancy name for the second floor overhanging the first, creating a covered walkway and supported by columns along the outer edge. If you look carefully, those columns really do go to concrete footings.

Something else about this Loggia is that if you look a little bit closer to the fence and the big sidewalk between the buildings, there are a series of additional concrete slabs that will be the bases of benches. It will be on the outer curve of a half moon decorative area that we will need to landscape. It is designed to give folks a chance to sit and visit, contemplate, pray or just watch nature.

The Loggia is across the full front and part way back on each end. Closest to the Church Life Center, the existing canopy from that building will remain and be added to closest to the back parking lot, since the hallway of the new building is not in line with the hall and doors of the Church Life Center. It will be possible to go from one building to the other without getting wet.

Thanks for raising the question. It is not something that really has been seen here before.

Question: I have noticed that on the second floor at the four corners, the column is galvanized. Also, there are a bunch of little short galvanized columns between some beams around the edges at the corners. Why are these galvanized?

Answer: This question stumped the building committee for a while. They had to go to the architects, and then the builder, who went to the steel fabricator before an answer came out.

It seems that originally galvanizing was called for in the specifications that were released early on. Subsequently, this requirement was revised to finish the steel in red primer finish. However, the steel fabricator had already started and had these pieces galvanized before the specifications were changed. They agreed to only charge the red primer price for these pieces, rather than charging us for having them galvanized.

All of the members of the Building and Grounds committee and the Building Committee were puzzled by this and it generated a lot of conversation in the groups.

Thanks for asking and forcing us to pursue this to the point of a real answer, instead of just wondering. The committee had fun finding out the answer.

Nov 16, 2004