Augustana Lutheran Church of Hyde Park

At the end of January, Augustana received notice that we were selected to receive a grant to fund the installation of solar panels and new roof on two-thirds of our building. The funding for the grant came from the federal government and is managed by the city of Chicago. In June, at a special congregational meeting, the congregation approved taking out a bridge loan from the Mission Investment Fund to cover the upfront expenses (the grant reimburses Augustana) and to sign contracts with the vendors doing the work, after the city contract is finalized.

We are still waiting on a city contract (the legal document for the grant). In a meeting earlier this week, we learned that the city is not ready to issue contracts to any recipients yet, including us. From that conversation, we don’t expect that the city will be ready to move ahead with a contract until October, and it could be longer than that.

There have been many hurdles to get this point: sorting through the various options for financing, dealing with the challenges of church incorporation, having to submit more bids and then resubmit them in different formats and with different information, finding out that the city erroneously charged us for UChicago signage twenty years ago, getting the needed permits, and the list goes on. Thanks to Jim Schwab, Carolyn Rahaman and Pastor Goede for dealing with a significant amount of obstacles and red tape!

Once the city is ready to move ahead with a contract for the grant, there is another city process we will go through in reviewing the contract, especially the numbers from the vendors, and the site, before we can finally sign the grant contract. At that point, we will ask the Mission Investment Fund to begin the loan, and then sign contracts with the vendors. Our best estimate at this point is that work may begin in November.