This new portal provides access to stock building plans from experienced church architects. Visitors are able to view church building plans by building size or seating capacity. If a church desires, a free consultation to help identify the most appropriate plan for a church’s needs and budget is available. If the church desires to purchase one of these stock plans, an order can be placed with the church architect that supplied the plans.

Most of the plans on the site may be purchased “as-is” from previous building programs and then brought up to local building code (for fee) either by the church architect that originally designed the plan, or by an architect of the church’s choice.

As one developer put it, “this is a real blessing to the church and will save a great deal of time, and effort, not to mention money.” In addition to allowing users to download preliminary plans, the site offers referrals to church building and capital campaign consultants, financing sources, and builders.

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First and foremost is that there is a difference between an architect that has designed some churches, and a church architect. Designing churches is different and working with church folks is different. What ever church architect or firm you select should specialize in churches. The church architect you select should have designed dozens or even hundreds of church plans.

Secondly, the church architect you select should have experience in designing churches that are of the size, style, and complexity of the church you need to build. Just because the firm of Dewey, Cheatam & Howe has designed a few cathedrals or edifices for mainline downtown churches, does not mean that they are the right church architect to design your multi-purpose family life center. As you search for a church architect, make sure you ask to see work from other projects of the type, size, and cost of your program.

In a Q&A session with a church yesterday, I was asked yesterday what were some general qualifications that the church should look for or consider in hiring an architect. In addition to the above tips, I suggested that they look for an architect who attends church. I even suggested they may consider asking how often they attend. The reasons for suggestion this were two-fold. For one, its always better to do business with a fellow Christian when possible. Secondly, and even more importantly, is how well can an architect design a church when they don’t attend?

As a church building consultant, I have been blessed to come to know several architects who specialize in church construction. You could save yourself a lot of time, effort and money, by contacting me and letting me put you in contact with the right church architect.

For additional information on question to ask church architect candidates, you may download an excerpt from my book, Preparing to Build, in the form of an article entitled 75 Questions to Ask When Hiring an Architect.

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I can think of a couple reasons why the architect’s cost estimate for church construction is low. For one, they usually only deal in theory as they are not the ones actually building the building. They may consult a building cost resource (always out of date), base it on their last project, or underestimate the cost of some of their architectural “features”. However, they are not on the front line every week in construction of these facilities and may not really have a grasp of the actual costs. Architects also tend to over design buildings. One of the first things most builders will do with a plan is to “value engineer” it to provided the same functionality with a simpler or more cost effective design.

Another reason is that architects usually have no liability if their price estimate is wrong. If the church budget is $1M and the best builders estimate is $1.3, the architect usually has no liability and will cheerfully redesign the building – for a fee. A wise church will insure that in the negotiation phase that any cost for redesign to make the church meet the budget that was provided is born by the architect and not the church.

By the way, if your church is building and you have boy scouts in your church, this would be a great opportunity for them to earn a merit badge.

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