Back To The Future Campaign

Sincerely,
Mark & Daphne Inboden Michael & Jill Kalkman Campaign Directors 

CROSSWALK CENTER PURCHASE

FACT SHEET

In response to a number of questions from the Home Fellowship Groups, we have prepared the following information:

Crosswalk Fellowship owns the Crosswalk Center. Crosswalk Fellowship is a ministry founded by Bo Mitchel, which in turn operates a number of outreach and ministry programs including:

• NarrowGate Golf Club - a weekly men’s bible study;
• You Get the Blessing – a weekly radio program on KOA Radio;
• Gold Nuggets of Life – an annual event to recognize and celebrates outstanding leaders and ministries in the Denver community;
• Game Day Memories – a program developed to provide professional sports events tickets to underprivileged kids and families.

Bo has a long history with Dr. Beltz both at Cherry Hills Community Church and Highline Community Church.  When the Colorado Boulevard building became available almost two years ago, Crosswalk Fellowship purchased the building with the intent of keeping it available for Highline, at cost, while we sold our current building and raised sufficient funds for a down payment.

While the intent has always been that Highline would purchase the building, there are other alternatives available should Highline not be able to purchase the building as planned. Some of these alternatives are:

• Crosswalk retains partial ownership of the building along with Highline.
• Crosswalk retains full ownership of the building and rents to Highline.
• Crosswalk sells the building to another buyer with a condition that Highline be able to rent the building for a minimum of 5 years.

It is our current position that long-term ownership is the preferred alternative as it is the only way to insure a facility that provides for the level of growth that Highline has experienced over the past few years. However, if Highline is unable to complete the transaction either because we are unsuccessful in our attempt to raise sufficient down payment, the sale of our old building falls through or we are unable to secure a loan, we would therefore have to consider one of the other alternatives described above.  All funds, which have been donated to the Back to the Future Campaign, are being held in a fund and if the purchase falls through for any reason, anyone who donated to the campaign will have the opportunity to have their donation returned.

The vision has always been that the Crosswalk Center would be a ministry center, serving the Kingdom of God through Jesus Christ, not just a church, but through several ministries.  In keeping with this vision, there are two major leases in place, which we anticipate to continue after Highline becomes the owner of the building. The Denver Church of Christ and Simchat Torah Beit Midrash (a Messianic Jewish congregation) are churches with relatively large congregations. While this arrangement offers challenges to all of our schedules, we believe that a building used for God’s purposes should not sit idle, but should be a busy place, full of activity throughout the week and we therefore count the challenges of scheduling as a blessing, believing that it will still meet our needs.

The purchase price of the Crosswalk Center is $7,825,000. The building was appraised only a few years ago at almost $10 million.  Conversations with lending institutions lead us to believe that we can borrow between 65% and 70% of the value of the building. Our goal, therefore, is to raise $3 million and to gain a mortgage of approximately $4.8 million. We estimate an interest rate of 5% and a monthly mortgage payment (P&I) of  $25,000/month. 

In addition to debt service, the monthly operating expenses of the Crosswalk Center have been running about $25,000 for the past two years. This includes direct operating expenses including personnel, administration, management and repair costs.

Highline’s growth in both attendance and income has steadily increased over the past few years. From 2010 until 2013 our average Sunday attendance has grown from 240 to almost 400 and our average giving has grown by 75%.

The total debt service and operating costs of the new facility of $50,000 per month compares with total costs on our old building of $20,000 per month.  However, while our old building brought in an additional rental income of about $5,000 per month, the new building has two renters who pay a total of $41,500 per month, which means that Highline’s new monthly costs would drop from $15,000 to $8,500 per month.

Our current property on University Boulevard is under contract and the buyer is proceeding through the land use requirements in the City of Centennial in order to use the property as an assisted living facility. It is anticipated that it will take the buyer until fall to complete this process. The sales price of the building is $2.8 million. Our payoff on the current mortgage is expected to be, at the time of closing, just over $2.5 million, however there are likely other costs which we will undoubtedly encounter, therefore we are not calculating any equity costs in our formula to purchase the Colorado Boulevard property.

In addition to the benefits of having a wonderful place to worship on Sunday morning, the ability to grow our congregation offers other benefits to our purposes of helping people Connect with God, Building People, Creating Community and Changing the world.  It allows us to increase our spending in other areas as well. We have already begun to pay some of our staff on a full-time basis. Two of our staff is now on paid health insurance and salaries have been increased for all of our staff.  We also wish to increase our support of ministries and missions around town and around the world. The increase in giving is allowing us to do this and our continued growth will insure our ability to increase it even more.  Obviously, in addition to space for growth, one of the

A major factor in our continued growth at Highline is our Senior Pastor. You all should know that Dr. Beltz has committed to a minimum of five years, plus an emeritus status after that.

In summary Highline is optimistic about it’s future. We continue to grow, people are blessed. We continue to add new ministries and our financial picture has never been brighter. While we know there are challenges ahead, we believe that God has provided us with a bounty of blessings and as long as we continue to seek and serve Him, He will continue to do so.

As we progress in our efforts to provide a home for the future of Highline, we will keep you posted to the best of our ability. We plan to have congregational or ‘town hall’ meetings at critical junctures and you should feel free to call the church at any time with questions you may have.

God bless,

Highline Elders