St. Dominic Catholic Church

Pastor's Corner

February 12, 2017

On Monday, February 6, I went with Mr. Greg Cornell, the Development Director for the parish and the school and Mr. Robert Kerr, principal of Robert Kerr Architecture Design to the chancery for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles in downtown LA.  We went to appear before the Archdiocesan Building Commission (ABC), to present plans for the renovation of the Community Center.  You may remember I reported a few weeks ago that we had received approval from the Archdiocese to complete the repair of the large upstairs room in the Community Center.   It had been damaged when a rafter broke a few years ago, and we have not been able to use that room ever since. 

Monday we went to the ABC to present a design for the renovation of the remainder of the building.  I spoke for five minutes about the reasons why this renovation is necessary and how it will be used in the future by the parish.  Then Mr. Kerr spoke for about 15-20 minutes on the building and its redesign.  Then the dozen or so members of the commission asked Mr. Kerr very specific questions about the renovation.

When we finished, we were told that we would be told in four to six weeks whether or not approval had been given for the project.  I was surprised when we returned home to find the following message in my inbox from Williamson Sy, the Project Manager Consultant in the Construction Department of the Archdiocese:

Congratulations!  The Building Commission has approved the St. Dominic’s Plan, and has granted the following two approvals that were requested:

• Approval of the Revised Conceptual Design.
• Approval to proceed with permit application, Design Development and Construction Document. 

The presentation was excellent.

We already had permission to proceed with the repair of the upstairs “ballroom”, and that work will most likely begin before Easter.  With the approval of the conceptual design, we have approval from the Archdiocese to begin our capital campaign in earnest.

I am very grateful to our Development Committee who have done a tremendous amount of behind-the-scenes work over the last three years or more to get us to this point. Moving forward, you can expect more communication from me about this very exciting and important project for our parish’s future.