Facilities

Building expansion update

Bulldozers welcome
David Bernstein is happy to say that he can finally answer the question, "When is construction of the expansion going to begin?" The answer is it's already happening. On June 3 the congregation received the permits from the Town of Flower Mound and on June 4 CKA closed on the loan with Frost Bank.

Construction photo update available online
Construction is now well underway. Check out this web page posted by our contractors, McCaslin-Hill Construction, Inc., for photos and updates:

http://www.mccaslin-hill.com/kolami.asp

Sign of the times
We are also getting a new sign. It will be a 10 foot tall sign that will be lit 24 hours a day. It will feature the Rabbi's name and four lines of text. Rabbi Dennis has already suggested the first phrase: "Under the same management for over 3,500 years."

Here are some additional photos from Trey Herron with McCaslin-Hill showing the great progress:

June 17 Some of the stakes in the photos are utility locations, which are water, electrical, gas and any other underground lines. Some of the stakes are also cut or fill markers that the excavator will use to form the new shape of the ground for underneith the new expansion. There will also be a "dip"in the front lawn to collect and direct rain water runoff when we're through. A lot of the property will be graded to new elevations to direct water around the new building.

June 21 Here are some more pics I took this morning. A day's work of dirt work is pretty much all that has happened. You can see the new pad where the portable bulding is moving. The tree in the front has been torn down, the deck around the portable building has been removed along with some sidewalk.

June 25 Here are a couple of pics I took today. The portable building has been moved and some of the grading has been done out front. The utility contractor has dug his pit to bore under the street to the other side.

July 8 We set the utility vault in the ground out in the front yard; this will give us access to the underground pipes through a door in the top after we fill the hole back up. Also, there are some pics of the guys getting the rebar ready for the piers which will extend 16 feet down into the ground so the building won't move when the ground swells.

July 13 Here are some pics I took last Friday. We drilled piers Friday and Monday. They're large shafts, about 2 feet wide, that extend about 17 feet into the ground. They'll be supporting the building foundation to prevent movement with ground swelling. Once we had them drilled and the reinforcing steel placed in them, we used a concrete pump truck to fill them with concrete. You can see it in the pics, its the big truck with a large arm that reaches over and pumps the concrete through a tube.