One of the most challenging issues the modern church faces is how to design and build a place of worship that brings people together as a unified body. As if coming to that realization and place of action isn’t enough, the cost of building continues to rise.

“You’ll never save money after the shovel hits the dirt” is an unfortunate but true axiom in commercial construction. It is incredibly important to have a good handle on costs during the preliminary services phase and the construction document phase of your project.

Concrete, Steel Increase in Price

The construction business has experienced some of the largest cost increases in construction material in the last 20 years. In the late 1980s, we were in a construction industry recession, when the price of oil was $18 per barrel.

In 2002, we experienced an increase in concrete materials, which were based on the cost of cement rising from $48 per cubic yard to more than $60 per cubic yard in just four months.

Now we are experiencing a steel price increase of 70 percent. All these steel increases are blamed for the increased cost of the scrap steel, which makes up more than 50 percent of raw steel costs for the steel fabricators. These increases affect steel beams, columns, steel flooring and roofing, metal buildings and many other parts of any church building.

Fuel Prices 

Another issue facing builders today is the cost of diesel fuel, which is used in the trucks that deliver everything to the construction site. Delivery charges have doubled in cost, and are passed on to the customer (the church) as an energy or fuel surcharge.

In September 2007, an average worship space/education building cost about $140 per square foot with audio/video/lighting system allowance. The same building today will cost $175 per square foot – a 25 percent hike. If you were building a worship/education facility approximately 30,000 square feet, the building would cost at least $1 million more today than it did this time last year.

Creative Cost-Saving

So, how do you design a church that will allow for maximum impact on the community, but still be able to pay the light bill at the end of the month?