FAQ #11 - Has Harvest London Found a Piece of Property to Building On?

PostedFriday, September 11, 2009 @ 8 AMByBuilding Blog AdminTaggedNo tags

We are constantly looking for property but to be honest there is just very, very little available in London which meets our minimum needs. We need at the lowest end 10 acres to allow for future growth. Our goal would be to get 12 or optimally about 15 acres. And we need zoning or a reasonable expectation of a zoning change to allow a church to function. And we desire visibility – so a higher traffic area. And we desire a location which is efficient for all our attendees – both in town and out of town attendees. One more minor detail – cost! We believe we cannot spend more than $750,000 on land as we believe we should keep our overall building cost for phase 1 at around $3.5M.

So with all this in mind at this time there is only one property in all of London that comes close to our needs. It is a vacant piece of land on Wellington Road south – just south of the 401 on the east side. It is on the north side of the Catholic school board building and Regina Mundi school. It is 36 acres which is more than we need and is listed for sale at $1.6M so out of our price range but it has zoning exactly as we need. They are in the process of severing this property and think by October they will have it ready to sell (it is listed and has been for over 6 months). We may be able to get this for our top-end cost but never know till you make a firm offer.

I just thought I would mention this property as it is currently the only one which is feasible in terms of zoning. We are looking at other properties but I think it is important you know that we have few options.

You know the old saying that location is everything. Well it is not everything but is very important to us. Accessibility and visibility are two key aspects we cannot ignore when looking for a location. We know there will be some who will not like the location as we have people coming from all corners of the city and beyond. So if we build on the west side that will be hard on those living on the east side. If we build on the south side that will make an extra drive for those on the north side, etc. So we are trying to find a location that works best overall.

But God is able so we pray and look and wait!