A Season of Renewal!

Renewal construction updates (almost) as they happen, for the week of September 7, 2015.
This is our last construction update before we begin the High Holy Days and everyone connected to our wonderful Renewal Project, from our clergy to our lay leaders to our hundreds of volunteers, wishes our entire congregation a hearty Shana Tova!
As we wrote in the last edition of Life at Holy Blossom, you definitely won’t need to trade in your kippah for a hard hat when you come to Shul, as our preliminary phase of construction will temporarily wind down during this time. We’ll have full use of our Main Sanctuary, Eisendrath Auditorium and Philip Smith Hall. While we will have reduced space in the Philip Smith Foyer and the Enkin Boardroom, our rabbinic/cantorial team and lay leaders have been working very hard to schedule available spaces for all services and programs.  There will be appropriate wayfinding signage in place, and extra ushers to help you as we do our best to ensure that your experience during these upcoming High Holy Days is a positive one.
Here’s the current status of our preparatory phase of construction:

• Just last Friday, work was completed on the new, walk-in refrigerator and freezer in the lower level kitchen.
• All material and equipment that was being stored in the Philip Smith Congregational Hall has been removed and the process of converting that area to worship space for the High Holy Days is well underway.
• The last few details are being completed in our new temporary offices on the first, second and third floors of the School Wing, so that our clergy and professional staff can move out of the administrative wing soon after the holidays.
• We are just about ready to commission our new elevator and are still hopeful that it will be ready for use either just before or shortly after Rosh Hashanah.
• Repairs to the Dewbourne parking lot have been finished. Much of the Ava Road lot repair (following the removal of the two old, no longer used, underground oil storage tanks that we reported on last edition) has also been completed.  There’s still a bit more paving work to be done this week, but it should all be finished before Rosh Hashanah begins.
• Work on installing our new data lines, telephone lines, security devices and fire alarm panel is very near completion. Our crews will finish this work prior to the High Holy Days.
• Our new men’s and women’s washrooms off the Philip Smith Hall (including an accessibility ramp) are now complete.
• The new staircase, extending from the classroom area on the north side of the building to the lower level, will not be installed until after the holidays, but please be assured that we will have adequate access and egress routes in place.

We remind you that this preparatory phase has been undertaken to enable us to remain on campus throughout the soon-to-start construction of the most visible and most transformative components of our Renewal Project – our new central Atrium and our new Family Chapel.
When you’re at Temple for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, or anytime, please have a stroll around to see the gorgeous renderings of how many of our key spaces will look after Phase 1 is complete.  And, for the most up to date photos and video of construction in progress, please click here.