We are still in a holding pattern for financing our project. Our bank had told us we'd have the answer nearly two weeks ago and well... we don't. Some of the decision makers were out of the office last week. We are currently working on two contingencies. The first one we've already presented and there is another one in the works as well. We have grown 13% from this same time last year and eventually (sooner not later) we will be out of space. Sometime between the very near future and this coming August we will be going to three services. 8:15, 9:35 and 11:00 on Sunday mornings. I pray that we will have a significant amount of people who will be willing to move to the 8:15 service from our current 9:30 service and that we will also have many from our 11 service who will move to the 9:35 service. This sacrifice would allow for more room to reach people at our most popular hour... 11:00. I hope to have another update for you soon.

Believe Update

The appraisal is in and more favorable but it's still not giving us a 60/40 LTV ratio. We requested a revision to what came back a few weeks ago because the appraisal left off almost 700 sq. ft. We haven't heard the final revised property appraisal based on the new construction. However the bank is still going to review our loan request. They will consider our loan even though we are needing to borrow a little more than 60% of the value.

We've had two dates come and go without the loan being presented but now we are told it will happen in the morning. This is a God Sized Ask! We are seeking to receive a loan of nearly 4 times what we received last year in our general giving and Believe giving combined. If we get approved, the design will need to have construction documents developed (This should take a few weeks) and then it will go back out to bid (about 3 weeks).

I've spoken with a couple of General Contractors and it seems like there are many who are in our situation. The funding is taking an extremely long time. This is a very cautious time for lenders. Crosspoint's nearly 8 years of history shows growth, growth and more growth. It has been a rewarding journey and I look forward to what the decades ahead have in store.


Below you will find our latest building design. It's still subject to change but I wanted you to be able to review it.

Registered Plat

At the end of 2010 we had another major accomplishment. Our plat was recorded with the City of Cibolo. Without our property being platted we couldn't proceed with our expansion project. (See previous posts for a better understanding of the plat.) Financing the project is our last significant hurdle. Our bank was hoping to give us the final verdict in December but it has been, you guessed it, delayed. We should be updated this month. There is some concern because the value engineering hasn't reduced our construction cost enough. We've worked hard to get our construction costs down to $2,200,000 but we are about a quarter of a million away from this goal. Also the December delay with our bank was do to some bad news. The minimum amount of equity we are required to have has shifted in this economy. What used to be the standard Loan to Value was 80.20. This economy has shifted the Loan to Value for church. Now the standard Loan to Value for churches is 60/40. Our project, if we could get the construction costs down, of $2,200,000 comes in at 71/29 Loan to Value. We are waiting on a reassessment of our previous appraisal before the bank will make a formal decision for financing our project.

In the meantime another private lending group is evaluating our financial needs. Because of the concern of coming up short on our financing we've begun to look at a redesign that would reduce the project from nearly 16,000 square feet to closer to 13,000 square feet. We aren't putting a lot of effort here because we would prefer to build the original design. But we don't want to give up or have to wait another year before we could build more space. If there is a redesign the three highest priorities are 1. Worship space for 500, 2. Restrooms and 3. Expanded coffee shop.

I hope to have an update for you by the first week in February.=