When Christ Child Society excitedly celebrated a ceremonial groundbreaking for the new Christ Child House in Fall of 2023, the site plan approval had been received by the City of Detroit and construction bid packages were distributed by our construction manager, JS Vig. We thought we were ready to go.

However, when the bids were reviewed, the numbers came in much higher than the original projections, particularly in the area of Mechanical, Electrical and Plumbing (MEP). It became clear that many areas of the building had been over-designed.

In October of 2023, the Building Committee met again with the construction manager, architect and our tireless owner’s rep, Gord Sommerville, and reiterated Christ Child Society’s commitment to build to budget and challenged the group to roll up their sleeves, sharpen their pencils, continue value engineering and re-bid the project without eliminating any aspects that are critical to the mission of Christ Child House. Gord estimates that a combined total of 500 hours were spent on redesign.

The revised construction drawings were rebid in late March 2024, and soon after the construction manager was able to arrive at a Guaranteed Maximum Price (GMP) that matched our projected budget. The Building Committee voted unanimously to endorse the GMP and May 1 and the Steering Committee approved commencing construction.

Construction officially began in July of 2024. Click on the buttons below to follow the progress.