PFOD Transition Blog

A resource for sharing site visit photos and other items related to finding a new home for our sangha. (Click on photos for larger images or slide views). + Site Visit Photos + Grant Park Church + Northminster Presbyterian + 1825 NE 43rd Ave. (Ex Children's Gym) + 231 SE 12th Ave. (Catholic Charities) + Coptic Christian Church + Dharma Rain Center

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PFoD Packing up -- moving out! by *update* May 29th!

Save the dates! We are packing up! Saturday, May 11, 12:30 – 6:00 PM After the Aloka Vihara nuns meal offering Sunday, May 19, 12:30 – 5:15 PM Before the Ajahn Sucitto tea

Calling all library and kitchen packers, and people of ability who can move furniture. If you come every week, if you only came once, or haven’t been able to make it in a while—you all are encouraged to join the packing party. Sign up in the kitchen or contact Charla to let her know you are coming.

We will be focusing our packing and moving activities on May 11 and 19 to work in harmony with the monastic visits and the momentum already at the center. We will have a “pod” delivered to the parking lot for ease of packing, and for storage.

The final two weeks at the Sellwood center there will still be the regular weekly program offerings where more can be incrementally added to the pod, and the final Friday night in Sellwood on May 31st.

We all have a chance to share this experience of anicca, dukkha, anatta together while practicing the Dhamma at all times. We welcome all the time and energy you can offer toward the move.

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PFoD New (Temporary) Home to be Dharma Rain Zen Center

Hello Friends, I am Echoing all of the appreciation for yesterday's energizing and beautiful community meeting. In all my preparations I had a blank wall in my mind as to what today would be. I woke up with the feeling of stepping forward with possibility, and giving ourselves some space to discover something new. 

Dharma Rain Zen Center & Temple

1404 SE 25th Ave, Portland, OR 97214)

View Larger Map

I am experiencing deep gratitude for the integrity of all of you, the Board of Directors, the community at large, with whom the triple-gem is so clearly a refuge; that it shows the gift of dhamma is beyond all gifts. Deep bows to everyone. 

And my additional bows and smiles of gratitude to Greg and Jeff and Matthew, who spent many hours researching and scouting out at least 6 other properties in the last 2 weeks, and in general, just being my right hands (yes I have three!) to get to yesterday.  And to all those who participated in any of the Transition committee planning meetings: Each of you took time to shape the way through this process together in meaningful ways. Thank you for all your efforts, skillful thinking, phone calls, and deepening respect & friendship along the way. 

View the presentation of sites

And to those who were not able to share directly in the hours of presentation and skillful sharing of views and opinions,  Please feel free to click this link to view the presentation to see what we saw, and to take from it what you will. 

Dharma Rain will be our new home to gather ourselves and to share the dhamma together. Woot Woot!

Next steps: Plan the move. Who's ready?  Stay tuned.

your friend in dhamma,

Charla

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Sunday, April 21 - Report on Four Properties

The annual Community Meeting is coming up. It will include discussion of these four promising properties. 

You can read more information on each property below

9008 N. Smith (St. Johns)

Northminster Presbyterian Church

Grant Park Baptist Church

Dharma Rain Zen

Come Sunday, April 21 from 1:00 - 4:00pm to see the slideshow and talk about the move.  There is also a Board meeting before from 9:30am - 12:00pm and a potluck lunch.  Come for one or all.  Everyone is welcome.  More details on the PFoD website.

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The State of the Search 4/10/2013

Six places seen that "might work."

Northminster Presbyterian Church

Grant Park Church

Ex Children's Gym

Catholic Charities Building

Dharma Rain Zen Temple

Coptic Church

Not yet seen

St. John's Church

Misc NE Churchs for Sale

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Dharma Rain Zen Center Temple (1404 SE 25th Ave, Portland, OR 97214)

Building is two floors, each about 2000 sqft.  Upstairs is a single shrine room 2000 sqft (45x40), downstairs is a gathering room 800 sqft, dining room 300 sqft, kitchen 100 sqft, office 100 sqft and storage room 100 sqft, interview room 40 sqft. Two main bathrooms and one other.

Will lease for $250/month for each slot. Available slots: Tuesday, Friday, Sunday nights every week. Saturday day/night sometimes. For sale in May somewhere in the $400,000's. They currently think they won't move out until January, even if it sells earlier and we could continue to rent until then.

It's a beautiful space that feels very good.

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231 SE 12th Ave., 97214 (Catholic Charities Building)

Name of contact person: Duane Link, [phone]

The total sq. ft. is almost 6000. However, the usable sq. footage for a meditation space was under a 1000 sq. ft., which is in the basement. The basement was a narrow rectangular room. The other space was upstairs and divided into offices. There was a small room with a sink and a dishwasher next to the basement.

Asking rent for a lease is $2000+. However, perhaps could be much cheaper. Only a short term lease is available as the owners are contemplating the space as a tear down.

There is electric heating. No air conditioning that I saw. Plenty of parking. Some bathrooms.

Could be used by existing community if necessary, but it would not be welcoming to new or casual visitors. Not a long term solution.

(Update: the photos don't truly capture the space's "deferred maintenance."

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Coptic Christain Church 4422 SE 65th Ave., Portland, OR 97206

Mary Brown, Broker aka "Portland Church Lady" 503-819-7164 [email protected] Over 5000sqft building, many rooms: Shrine room 1000sqft (30x30), Gathering room with Kitchen 800sqft, Residence Living Room/Bedroom/Bathroom 600sqft, 10 Offices 100sqft each. For sale only, $495,000.  Oil heat, forced air, air conditioning, parking lot, 2 main bathrooms. Big space, beautiful shrine room, lots of offices.  Building is was built in an inexpensive way and has deferred maintenance.  Bit of yard available, as well as an adjoining residential lot also for sale separately.

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1825 NE 43rd Ave., 97213 (Children’s Gym)

Mary Tabor with Commercial Realty Services 503-758-3130.

4200 Sq. Ft, this is a space on the second floor of a commercial building in the Hollywood District, the main commercial area. Located close to the main strip with traffic. Also located next to a Green Dollar store. Noise may be comparable to current Sellwood location, perhaps a bit louder.

The main hall has at least 2000 sq. feet., hardwood floors, windows with lots of light.

There are additional rooms for a library and an office for Sakula, both spacious with lots of light.

The asking monthly rent is $1700 plus heating and utilities. This large space might be expensive to heat. The landlord is not considering a lease longer than 2 years.

I don’t believe there is air conditioning and the type of heating is unknown.

There is no kitchen.

There is a parking lot in front of Green Dollar available for use at night and on weekends. There are 2 bathrooms.

Overall the feeling of this space was impressive, so spacious. The main drawback is its lack of kitchen and the short term lease.

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Grant Park Church

503-936-0906, Randy.

$1200 for our using the downstairs room every Tuesday and Friday night, every Saturday morning and one full Saturday a month. They do not favor our proposal that we stay set up in that room, so we would have to set up and break down each time. Their amount also includes exclusive use of a small office/library/monks room on the same lower level as the shrine room. Meeting space in the fireplace room: non-dedicated space shared by the different communities in Grant Park Church. Room is very large, considerably larger than the room in the Sellwood Church. Storage closet available to store cushions, benches, alter and rug. However, some distance from the main space (across sanctuary). Adjacent to the fireplace room is a very nice kitchen. On the same level is a room for kid's to play in and also a small chapel room for perhaps a library. The sanctuary would work for visiting monks or other major events where attendance exceeds 50 or more. There are 35 spaces in the parking lot. The neighborhood may get a little cranky if there is too much street parking near the church.

In the basement is a two-part room occupied by another congregation that conducts services on Friday and Tuesday night. Pastor Gregg suggested that this might be flexible. There is no way a sangha event would work concurrently with a service with this congregation: they worship with a drum kit and two (two!) electric keyboards. The other part of this basement space would work as a dedicated space, but would need a partition, either built in or otherwise. There is close by a room currently used as a storage space that could be a library and an office for Sakula. (Note: this is not available after Grant Park Church board discussed). Also available is an enormous indoor concrete floor gym, that could be used for walking meditation. There is a room for board or other small meetings. There are many bathrooms.

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Grant Park Church

Basement meeting room (possible dedicated space); chapel room (library?); storage room (possible library/Sakula's office); board room; Pastor Martina's church space (not available, but note drum kit and two keyboards–currently meets Friday and Tuesday nights).

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Grant Park Church

Exterior view; Fireplace room; upstairs kitchen; sanctuary; kid's play room; basement gym.

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No Transition Planning meeting on April 7th

Hello Friends, Just wanted to update here that there will NOT be a Transition Planning meeting on Sunday, April 7th.  During this time we are viewing more properties with the assistance of a commercial realtor. 

An update of what we have seen will be given at the Annual Board & Community Meeting on Sunday, April 21st. **Save the Date**.  We would love to see you there and have your feedback!

If you come across buildings for lease on your comings and goings around town, please be sure to contact me with an address and we will be able to make some assessments. Thank you!

Be well in the meantime!

Charla (Chair of Transition Committee)

Update: the April 21st Annual Meeting begins at 9:30 and the Community Meeting starts at 1 and ends at 4. There will be a potluck lunch in between at noon.

(Jeff)

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Property Search Criteria list -- Deal Breaker Criteria

To help everyone feel comfortable asking and looking at properties, the Transition Committee (Thank you Adrienne!) made a very basic initial criteria list to be able to ask questions. 

Here is the link to the online document. 

Please use the questions in the document to help standardize the search process for each property. 

For some properties we will need to use a commercial real estate broker. We are in the process of finding one to help us. 

Sunday, 3-24-2013 meeting

We also had a short discussion about what (if any) real deal breakers that existed with the search. Here is our first crack. Things to keep in mind. 

Deal Breaker Criteria:

Not 1000 square feet

(If sharing space with other congregation) Not with an organization that is not a good fit with PFOD values and mission.

Some Questions about deal breakers: (These brought up certain preferences, but we couldn’t identify if they were absolute dealbreakers.)

Next to undesirable types of businesses? (ie: strip club, bar/lounge, etc)

Really noisy street?

A strip Mall property?

Location? (ie: distance)

The point of "deal breakers" is not to generate a big list of things we don't like. These are points that help us differentiate between what is acceptable and unacceptable. 

The Next Transition Committee meeting: Sunday, April 7 10:30am-12:30pm (with child care)

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9008 N. Smith (St. John's) church

One sent from Greg and then Sakula. Church in St. John's. 

RMLS Link  with more photos

Full RMLS listing page

Note from Realtor helping me: 

Check on the church on N Smith. It is bank owned. It says they will consider a lease/purchase (meaning lease with an option to buy) but would prefer a sale. Beautiful space. 

Need to schedule a site visit.

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2100 SE 10th (SE Industrial)

A listing sent from Alistair

Link to City Feet listing.

We need to schedule a site visit.

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Notes on Northminster Presbyterian

Notes for property visit: Northminster Presbyterian Church: 2823 N Rosa Parks Way, Portland, OR 97217

The church has owned and been established at the site since 1911. Currently, there is a charter school using the space that will be vacating due to needing more space. Their lease expires June 30, 2013. Site visit by Sallie Odenthal, Jeffrey Armistead, and Mary Myers on March 14, 2013.

The potential space includes:  3 rooms that are approximately: 750 sq ft, 350 sq ft, and 100 sq ft

Rent includes utilities; $1100 -$1500 has been mentioned by church

The rooms have designated heat and no A/C, but multiple people said due to it being downstairs that it stays very cool and is not an issue. There are upper windows that open and bring in good natural light in all the rooms.

Access to a full kitchen

Separate men and women’s bathrooms

Separate entrances with locks for each room

Plenty of parking: There is a lot on site, and they have permission to use the parking lot of a clinic across the street as overflow during non-operating hours

Access to another upstairs room for larger events that holds 80 – 100 people (in chairs, so I’m guessing not as many with cushions and mats); this room is off the kitchen, directly above the larger room that we would use as the shrine room, and shared by other groups.

Seems to be a quiet area/neighborhood

Pros:

Greatest Pro is the Pastor. He is extremely open, kind, and welcoming. He and another elder made it

clear that they would want us there and that they are very flexible.

Separate spaces for shrine room, library, and office for Spiritual Director

Parking and kitchen access

Cons:

Older space, although in decent condition

No ADA access due to stairs

Kitchen access may be awkward and noisy due to location

Potential for noise bleed from upstairs

Rooms are a bit small

3-17-13 email Update 

Hi All,

  I wanted to share the lovely email (below) that Pastor Bill sent. I was already planning on sending him a thank you, so I will today.

  Adios,

Sallie

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Hello Sallie,

  Just a quick note to say how much we enjoyed your visit, this week. As you and I suspected before, I still believe our missions and philosophies match well together—certainly well enough to warrant sharing space in ministry. We are happy to be considered in your search process. And should your team select our site for further negotiations, be assured, we are eagerly awaiting your proposal. In the meantime, please don’t hesitate to call me with questions.

  Blessings,

Pastor Bill