Congregation Shaare Tikvah

		Congregation Shaare Tikvah
Welcome

Relocation

Shaare Tikvah is undergoing a major transition in order to continue to serve the Jewish community of Southern Maryland well into the 21st century.

The transition hinges on a relocation to Upper Marlboro.

In Fall 1999, the Future Committee was formed to study Shaare Tikvah's situation and present solutions. The committee investigated whether its feasible to relocate. The committee concluded that it could be done. The committee found that land could be purchased and the proceeds from the sale of our current building and rabbinage could be used to build a new building and rabbinage on the new property.

The Plan

Here is the overall plan for the relocation.

			'99	2000				2001				2002				2003				2004				2005				2006
Step	Start	Finish	Q4	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4
Plan & Get Approval	Sep 1999	June 2000
Purchase Property	June 2000	May 2001
Sell Temple Hills Bldg	Oct 2001	May 2004
Move to Nevey Shalom	Aug 2002
Sell Rabbinage	Aug 2002	Oct 2002
Initial Design of New Bldg	Mar 2003	Aug 2003
Plan New Synagogue	May 2004
Permits
Build New Synagogue
Move into New Bldg

				Completed					In Process					Future

Develop Plan & Get Approval

The first question was where. After much study, we decided that Upper Marlboro would be the best location. Upper Marlboro is a central location for the Jews of Southern Maryland. Plus it's on the crossroads of two major highways, Rt. 4 and Rt. 301. The map below shows four congregations in Southern Maryland (Shaare Tikvah is labeled A). Upper Marlboro is the red star in the middle.

PG County
The plan was presented to the congregation on 6/25/2000 and approved.

Purchase Property

After several months, we found an excellent site. The map below shows the location (marked by the black circle).

new site

The property is a little over 5 acres. It's a relatively flat farm land. Here is a panoramic photo of the site.

view of new site

The land has passed the perc tests and, on May 21, 2001, Shaare Tikvah purchased the site for its new home.

Based on the perc test results, the engineers drew the following diagram of the site. The large rectangle in the middle is the new building.

site plan

Sell Temple Hills Synagogue

In October 2001, Shaare Tikvah put its building on the market. It took much longer to sell than expected. On 5/19/2004, we sold the building to the Church of Love Faith Center.

Move Temporarily to Nevey Shalom of Bowie

During the Summer of 2001, Shaare Tikvah and Nevey Shalom discussed the possibility of merger. In the Fall, both groups agreed to table the discussion. Although both congregations are affiliated with the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, there were significant differences that could not be ironed out in a short amount of time.

However, in Spring 2002, Shaare Tikvah and Nevey Shalom discussed the idea of Shaare Tikvah moving into the Nevey Shalom facilities in Bowie while our relocation proceeds. The arrangement would benefit both synagogues:

Shaare Tikvah could sell its Temple Hills building yet still have a place to function
Shaare Tikvah would save the costs of renting a place
Shaare Tikvah could sell the rabbinage immediately
Nevey Shalom would have a rabbi. Nevey Shalom did not plan to renew their contract with their rabbi after it expired on 7/31/02.
Shaare Tikvah and Nevey Shalom events and services would be better attended.
Shaare Tikvah and Nevey Shalom members would get to know each other better...maybe resulting in a future merger.

In August 2002, after Nevey Shalom's previous rabbi moved out and they prepared their rabbinage, Rabbi Resnick, Shula Resnick and their son Aviv moved into the Nevey Shalom rabbinage.

Sell Rabbinage in Temple Hills

As soon as the Resnicks moved out of the Temple Hills rabbinage, we put the house on the market. We had several offers within a few days. We sold the house in October 2002.

Design New Synagogue

In March 2003, Shaare Tikvah contracted with Gensler Design to prepare preliminary designs for a new synagogue. Members of the Future Committee met with Jordan Goldstein from Gensler to give him some guidelines. Some of the guidelines were

Must be inexpensive and within budget
Slanted roof
Good lighting and acoustics
Classrooms or ability to convert the sanctuary into classrooms
Kitchen

Click here to see the preliminary designs.

Gensler asked two construction companies to provide cost estimates to build the synagogue. The less expensive one was $1.4 million.

Design New Synagogue

In July 2004, the Future Committee met a builder called Warder & Associates. Warder has a great deal of experience building houses of worship in Prince George's County, North Carolina and Florida. We told Warder the total amount we could afford to pay for the building. We emphasized that there couldn't be any hidden costs. Warder agreed to take on the project and keep the costs to our agreed amount.

Before beginning the design work, Warder said we needed (1) a study of the road to determine if any road improvements would be necessary; and (2) a study of the soil to determine if it's suitable for the project. He wanted to be sure there weren't any additional large expenses due to the road or soil. Both reports were favorable.

Warder told us he could build a synagogue of about 3000 square feet. The committee came up with a concept drawing. We contracted with an architect, Philip Aaron Lacy, and a civil engineer firm Williams Enterprises. In November 2004, the architect delivered a preliminary design. Click here to see the current preliminary design.