FAQ

Check out the questions and answers people have found most helpful.

We are building a two-story structure on the I-83 side of our building, with a parking lot which goes 360 degrees around the current and new structures. The new building will be about 64,000 square feet, which is the equivalent of combining The Point (16,000 sf), the Beaver Dam building (16,000 sf), and doubling that. The new building will provide an auditorium which will seat about 800 people, additional fellowship space before, between, and after services, additional NextGen spaces, and numerous multi-purpose spaces to facilitate our many ministries on Sunday and throughout the week. The plan is to close The Point, utilizing much of the infrastructure and equipment, and have a single, unified campus.

In 2020, HVC was launching a building campaign for a $20.4M expansion when the pandemic hit and in-person gathering was halted. In January 2021, while in-person attendance was still low, our senior pastor retired. Our elders and staff leadership decided to postpone the building expansion until in-person numbers warranted extra capacity, and we had a senior pastor in place. We have reached both of those milestones.

Unfortunately, building costs during and just after the pandemic escalated at record rates. While the slope has leveled, building costs will not be reversed. Although we have completed most of the required engineering, architectural, legal services, permitting, mortgage pay-off, and reforestation work, the remaining cost to build our planned expansion is estimated at $30.2M.

We have approximately $2.5M left from previous READY/REACH donations. This money has been carefully invested during the interim and no funds were used for expenses outside the scope of the building project.

We also hope to be able to secure a mortgage of $8.5M which will be serviced by the rent payments we are making on The Point. That leaves a needed campaign goal of $19.2M.

The building is being designed to be functional and attractive as would be expected in the Hunt Valley community, but the intention was never to design with extravagance. The building team has continually looked for ways to reduce costs and do the work more efficiently.

There are a couple of parts to this answer. The first is that building in phases costs more in the end. It would cost us $4-$5M more to build the same infrastructure in two phases. Secondly, if we do not abandon The Point, which currently provides additional auditorium, NextGen, and office space, we cannot justify the mortgage needed since we are planning to use the equivalent costs of our rent on Gilroy Road to service the mortgage payments.

A gymnasium has been considered several times in the original design but drastically increases the cost of the facility construction and the operating costs going forward, and is not strategic with our mission. Additionally, churches have run into legal issues in Baltimore County where permits to build have been denied because gymnasiums are outside the scope of what the County considers church activities.

Constructing a building for the sake of having a bigger building has never been our goal. On the contrary, our mission and vision have always been focused on reaching further into our community, and the consolidated building is a tool for facilitating and supporting that. Constructing a bigger building is a necessity, not only for our existing growth today, but for growth that will come in the future. It provides the base from which we can branch out. As Gary Wilmer recently noted, a majority of the people in our area do not attend church. The mission field for outreach in our community is huge.

The neighbors, by agreeing to the settlement, resolved past and future inconveniences related to the expansion of HVC’s property. They agreed not to oppose, or encourage others to oppose, our construction plans. The County has already approved our full Development Plan and the plat on file means our zoning cannot be changed by past or future neighbors.

Planting churches is a good thing and, at some point, may be strategic in either a “autonomous” or “multisite” format. However, planting a church does not address our bifurcated location problems. Operating on two sides of I-83, we are inefficient and exhausting our resources – for example, volunteer-staffing two music, tech, and NextGen teams at two campuses is creating strain on those teams, not to mention the pressure on preaching teams running between two locations with just “minutes to spare”. Operating two facilities this way is not sustainable; it is an interim solution.

With the additional auditorium and children’s programs at The Point, we have added critical capacity. However, we are routinely getting to attendance levels at both the 9:00 and 10:30 services where finding seating can be challenging. It is hard to invite and welcome new visitors when lack of seating at prime service times is a first impression. Adding additional services at less-than-prime service times does not add the needed capacity and further takes a toll on volunteers and staff.

There are other issues besides seating which need to be addressed. For example, the rent we are paying for The Point is expensive and being paid to a third party. As we increasingly see, there is competition for use of the Gilroy Road parking between NAPA, BC Brewing, and HVC. Further, as businesses grow, we are not guaranteed an affordable renewed lease in a fully utilized building. Construction of the new expansion on our own underutilized property addresses several issues including additional parking, space to meet, and freedom to use the facility when we choose.

The existing playground will be relocated from the northeast side of the building to the southwest side of the building. For orientation purposes, it will be roughly flipped to the same location on the opposite side of the Party Town theater. This will be inside the parking lot circle to prevent crossing through traffic.

HVC’s Building Team (HVC volunteers with construction, architecture, trades, and/or finance) explored numerous options including renovating existing buildings or purchasing other property. Unfortunately, with the unique requirements of our church, all off-site options explored were significantly more expensive by the time we renovated the property to fit our needs, and moving off-site would not well-steward the money which has been invested to develop architectural plans and complete the legal process associated with our zoning and right to build on the Beaver Dam property.

Related to on-site options, the Building Team explored many types of construction and ways to build cost-effectively within the code requirements. The resulting best-option was approved by the County in 2019. Changes to these plans would re-open the approved “Development Plan” and expose us to further legal actions by the community.