St. Mark Accessibility Project

4/13/19 - Lift Demo

3/24/19

3/17/19

Progress update from Chris Bauer - 3/14/19

Update from Chris Bauer - 2/23/2019
Installation of the lift has begun

Update presented by Chris Bauer
at Congregational Meeting on 1/20/2019

Site prep is 90% complete.
Lift is shipping February 6 from Toronto, Ontario.
Lift install & finish, interior trim/paint scheduled for February 11-22.
State inspection & certification planned for week of February 25.
Then, and/or concurrently, we will proceed with additional parts of the project such as repair and clean-up of HC Portico, creation of improved HC seating, improve/add directional signage, level sidewalks, sidewalk corner-ramps install by city of Roseville as needed, remove and reduce interior accessibility challenges as much as possible.
Blessing of The Lift will take place on Sunday March 3 (the Sunday before Ash Wednesday)
Pledges are at $125,000!
Pledges are about 75 % collected.
Thank YOU so much for your support and pledges to make this project a reality; with out you this would not have been possible.
Please be sure to fill out your Pledge Form and don’t forget the “In Memory of…” or “In Honor of…” line.
Pledge Forms are available near the picture table in the Narthex.

PLEASE SHARE THE NEWS & INVITE others to join us at St. Mark.

Thanks to Chris Bauer for photos of the project.

Update - 1/7/2019
The doors for our handicap entrance (doors facing the service drive) will not be accessible for the next few Sundays.
We have started demolition for the vertical lift and it will not be accessible for three to four Sundays.
You can still use the drive but will have to enter through the East Park street entrance.
The women's restroom at the east end of the building is still open. To access it, please use one of the other three staircases in the building. They are located at the office entrance (west end of building), the south end of the old church area, and on the lectern side of the sanctuary (these stairs go into the Sunday School area and there is also another women's restroom at the bottom landing).

Update from Chris Bauer - 12/2/2018

Doug Lootens, Joe Bartalino, Geoff Lane, Ron Urbanczyk and Dave Koback, and Chris Bauer have purchased a Vertical Platform Lift.
On Monday, 11/26/18, we had a visit with our construction team and selected vendor. Our group did a walk through of the site, re-examined the vendor bid sheet and made a slight modification, crossed all our “T”s , dotted all our lower case “J”s, signed the purchase order and made down payment on our device!

Our selected factory authorized vendor and installer is SECOND STEP.
Our selected product is the SAVARIA 1504. www.savaria.com/architects/gallery-of-projects/wheelchair_lifts/v-1504
Heavy construction will be provided by Dave Koback and his team at D & J Construction. dandjcontractinginc.com/
Finish construction and carpentry will be provided by Ron Urbanczyk and his team at Huron.
We are planning to begin construction the week of January 7.
We are expecting to have our State of Michigan inspection in mid-February.
Upon completion of an approved inspection we will be open and ready to go!

Update from Chris Bauer - 10/24/2018

We had a structural engineer and architect into the building. They approved moving the VPL location to the Handicap Entrance area providing we limited the size of the lift so we would not run into the structural steel or concrete beams. The architect and structural engineer preferred this location over the coat room, as did YOU according to the majority of the Congregation’s feedback!
Our lift will be installed in the up-bound stairwell adjacent to the handicap entrance, per the above limitations on size.
The architect drew up plans for this location and submitted them to the City; they were approved. Using this more accessible and lower cost location will require removing the ½ flight of stairs which moves from the HC entrance at street level up to the sanctuary. We will not be removing the ½ flight which goes from that entrance down to the Fellowship Hall. The lift will run through that upward stairwell and down into the closet behind the old lift and remaining down-bound stairs. That closet has been vacated; its wall and door will be modified as needed. The north Sanctuary door will be reversed to flip inward rather than outward into the Narthex. A safety gate will be required at the top of the handicap entrance down-bound stairwell.
See below for photos of location.
Huron Acoustics’ crew was in the building and carefully removed some of the ceiling in the lower level so our heating contractor, Bumler Mechanical, was able to relocate the steam and electrical lines in that area. This will allow the removal of the closet ceiling and the ½ flight of up-bound stairs.
Bumler was able to save us some money by tying this job into the timing of our state mandated boiler service and inspection cycle!
We have decided on the VPL brand and model: The Savaria model V-1504.
See it here: www.savaria.com/products/wheelchair-lifts/v-1504-lift
We have created a Request for Proposal which will go to multiple FACTORY AUTHORIZED vendors. The RFP specifies the features and options we have selected. We will review the RFPs with each vendor and discuss their suggested modifications to our RFP, if any.
The old lift is removed and listed on eBay as well as being submitted to other known locations with this brand product. We hope to recoup some revenue via the sale of the old lift’s parts. Worst case scenario… there is a little scrap metal value there.
Originally we hoped to be installed and ready for the Christmas Season but it is looking more like Holy Week… at this point.

The Accessibility Committee thanks you for your support and pledges to make St. Mark a fully accessible Church!

These steps go away, VPL goes here…

These steps stay, VPL goes where closet is…

Please see this PDF for information presented by Chris Bauer at our congregational meeting on March 4, 2018

We are holding a campaign to gather pledges for the Accessibility Project. Please consider what help you can give to make this project possible.

If you would like to make a pledge for the campaign, please fill out this form and return it to the office by Friday, May 4, 2018.