Welcome back to the Immaculata Project. My name is Bill Drew. I'm the Facilities Director on the St. Mary's Academy and College Campus, and the Owner's Representative for the Immaculata Project. Today we'd like to give you some updates on where we're at with the project on June 1st.

Right now, the roof of the cupola is on the ground. This has been erected here on the ground. They're going to be putting the sheathing and fireproofing on this - and then they're going to bring a large very large 380-ton crane to pick that up and set it on the columns that they're placing right now.

So, this roof section is 16 feet tall and it's 60 foot diameter. Our Lady’s image is 16 feet, so it would be approximately from this cross member to this cross member. This space right here.

We have two steel crews on site, both erecting separate areas. We've got one working on this main section and we had another one working on the narthex and cry room section. They just pulled one of the cranes back to assist a few picks here and get this end buttoned up so that the framers can start framing that.

About a week ago they just started fabricating this section. They already have the cry room floor level in. They still have to do some welding. That crew working on the east end will be buttoning up the transept and the roof and the trusses will be going on probably starting in another week or two - all the light gauge trusses.

This is a lot of the material that's being staged for the rest of this front section and the towers.

So this section here that we're walking up to is the narthex and above the narthex the choir loft. This was all put up in the last two weeks really.

“So since April, as you can see, the back of house steel all came up and tied together. ”

They were able to get a lot of the framing in, started sheathing the lower level, and bringing that up so that we can get the water proofers in and get the masonry started.

Taking you through the front door of the church here… this section right here is our front porch. Three arches above. Walk through that, you've got your main doors and two sets of side doors. You walk into the narthex. This is the floor of the cry room. In the next few weeks that'll be decked and poured; this whole space here is the narthex, the grand staircase going down to the basement there. You get to this section of beams here, this is the beginning of the nave. This is going to be fabricated along with the two towers. And then as that section above the transept and crossing get complete, they'll tie these both together.

As you can see most of the columns are up for the cupola. They're now tying in the top brace pieces. One more column to go. That's a dodecagon – it's 12-sided. When we designed this church, we designed it with a 12-sided cupola. Each one of those sections of the cupola will have a round window symbolizing a star in Our Lady’s crown – the 12 stars in her crown.

Right now, the top of those columns there will be another 16 feet of roof and at the base of where Our Lady sits will be 100 feet above the nave floor.

The columns up there that hold up the cupola roof – that are vertical – we have one right here on the ground. That pretty much shows you how big those are. And right next to it is a brace. And you can see the braces (the diagonal braces up there), these are very large pieces. They look pretty small on the ground. Those very large beams (the horizontal large beams up there), that's a 44-inch tall 233 pounds-per-foot beam. That is a massive beam. It's this tall. It doesn't look that big up in the air.

[Background talking: I'm going to ask Kris if I can cut through this way. Can I cut through that side and go to ‘back of house’ if I go straight along the confessional route? Kris: Yeah.]

Yea, so the framers have that back section wrapped up. And our masonry will be starting on this section (this higher section) in a few weeks.

This is the side chapel. You can see a lot of the windows are already framed in, fireproofing applied. And this section here we're in, this will be filled with geofoam and slab on deck poured above…

Alright, should we go around to the back side and take a look at the waterproofing and brickwork?

[Talking in background]

Alright, and the whole building is sheeted with this fiberglass-reinforced sheetrock product?

Alright, so as we walk down here this will all be retaining walls holding this back…

And then we come around the back and I see you’ve got the sheeting all done and waterproofing is pretty far.

Alright, so our all of our large HVAC units will all be sent through that space. [Kris: That’s exactly right.]

Alright, and the masons started. They've got the water table stone in. That's all fastened. And I see they're starting to lay the brick…

[Kris] Yep. We started into that just yesterday. Honestly, we've struggled watching… We got just enough water down [due to rain] that we won't be able to get our flashing in and inspected it here on the walls. So we've been waiting and waiting and waiting. Yesterday, we finally got a break. Everything dried out. We got our first round of flashing on to it. Our cast stone, which is that water table (that little two-piece water table), they've got that in there all anchored back to the wall. They're getting ready to start the masonry. They've got that section of wall. Now they'll go ahead and take that all the way up to the future roof line.

[Bill] Alright so once that cast-stone piece is in, the first few rows of brick, it's just go-time. They can run right up the wall. [Kris] Yep.

[Bill] Thanks and keep up the good work Kris.

[Kris] No problem.

[Bill] Alright, we'll see you later.

So, what you can expect over the next three months is the continuing of the steel structure. You'll really see the front façade come up the towers. That'll carry into the main crossing. You'll see the cupola top be put on. Stay tuned for that. We'll probably send out an update.

We'll continue to see the sheathing move around the building, very closely behind the waterproofing and the masonry work.