Changing course: Diocese works to trim price tag of renovating iconic Christ Cathedral

Faced with major cost overruns in renovating the Christ Cathedral sanctuary, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange has moved to rein in the project’s construction expenses and streamline operations at the sprawling campus, church officials said this week.

The diocese bought the 34-acre campus for $57 million in 2012 after its former owner, the Rev. Robert H. Schuller’s Crystal Cathedral Ministries, filed for bankruptcy.

Since acquiring the property, however, the diocese has suffered growing pains – including spending millions of dollars to repair and renovate existing buildings on the property, managing increased operational costs and handling the task of renovating an iconic Orange County building that attracts visitors from all over the world.

Some have suggested that Bishop Kevin Vann borrow from local parish programs, schools and priests’ retirement funds to get the cathedral built. But that proposed reallocation of money raised concern among Orange County Catholic families who collectively shelled out tens of millions of dollars in the massive fundraising campaign to benefit the diocese.

“Despite the desires of some to have a shiny, almost new cathedral ready for worship as soon as possible with a ‘damn the cost’ mentality, the same folk are now learning that most people (you and me out here in the trenches) are fine with less ... especially if it keeps everything within budget,” said Father Fred Bailey, pastor of Santa Clara de Asis in Yorba Linda.

Diocese officials say they have altered course in recent months after initially underestimating the cost of renovating the cathedral by more than $40 million and during the last few months, under Vann’s leadership, have undergone cost-cutting measures to get into better financial shape.

The bishop also created a construction task force in July to get renovation costs under control and reduce project costs from $108 million to $72 million, diocese officials said.

“It’s not common for cathedrals to be purchased out of bankruptcy,” said diocese spokesman Ryan Lilyengren. “The unprecedented and providential opportunity required a funding effort be launched before the due diligence and planning with regard to the renovation and construction could be completed.”

UNPRECEDENTED FUNDRAISING

To help pay for the sanctuary’s renovation, in late 2012 the Orange Catholic Foundation launched an unprecedented fundraising effort, the “For Christ Forever Capital Campaign.”

In a county of about 1.3 million Catholics, 24,000 families participated in the campaign, said Cindy Bobruk, the foundation’s executive director. The smallest donation was $100 and the largest, $20 million, she said.

The county’s Catholics have donated $110 million, of which $59 million will go toward the renovation, she said.

The remaining funds already have been pledged to a number of other projects such as various endowment funds, tuition assistance for students in the county’s Catholic schools, funding for improving technology in schools, Catholic Charities, priest retirement benefits and various outreach ministries, Bobruk said.

“We have a legal obligation not to touch the funds allocated for other programs,” she said.

In July, estimates to renovate the glass sanctuary came in at $108 million – about $50 million more than the funds raised by the Orange Catholic Foundation for the project.

This discrepancy occurred because diocesan officials did not perform construction studies to determine how much money they should raise, officials said. The Orange Catholic Foundation had based its fundraising effort on a 2012 study of how much money it could raise, as opposed to how much money the renovation required.

Vann took action in July, appointing a construction task force to significantly scale down the project and capping the final budget at $72 million. He also appointed a separate task force to bring down operational costs to run the campus. The diocese still is about $13 million short of the final budget for a project it hopes to complete by fall 2018.

“We expect to raise the money needed to complete this project,” Bobruk said.

In March, Vann disbanded a board whose members he had appointed to oversee the renovation project and convened a new board made up of 10 members.

“The bishop was happy with the work done by the older board,” said diocese spokesman Lilyengren. “The new board is just a reflection of where we are right now in the process. Its members have the specific skills and expertise to help see the project through to its completion.”

REINING IN COSTS

The biggest challenge to the renovation project has been to “maintain the spirit” of the iconic structure while keeping costs under control, said Richard Heim, a special volunteer adviser who is overseeing the project.

The design change that has helped bring down the price is the decision to “keep the bones of the building intact,” he said.

“This is a glass cathedral built in a seismic zone,” Heim said. “It’s certainly strong and well-constructed.”

Also, instead of buying stone for the interior from a quarry in Italy, officials will opt for stone that costs 30 percent to 40 percent less but could still produce similar aesthetic effect and durability.

Instead of going for a solid, marble altar, they’ve settled for long-lasting marble veneer.

There are several big-ticket items that remain, Heim said. As part of the renovation, the 78,000-square-foot cathedral will be completely air-conditioned. Workers are reinstalling the 10,000 glass panes atop the sanctuary, which will cost a little more than $4 million.

“This is extremely important because we need to secure all the glass before we put millions of dollars worth of work underneath it,” said Heim, who heads the California division of Clark Construction.

Other major expenses include metal ceiling panels that will control the level of sunlight that enters the building, lighting fixtures and audio-visual equipment, he said.

Although not part of the construction costs, the Hazel Wright organ has been refurbished in Italy at a cost of $2 million and is on a ship making its way to Orange County. The organ will be stored until the cathedral is renovated.

The complete renovation design is expected to be finalized by September.

Heim said he values the opportunity to be a part of this project.

“You rarely get a chance to build out a cathedral,” he said. “Everyone is anxious to be a part of this journey and make their contribution.”

RUNNING A LARGE CAMPUS

At 34 acres, the Christ Cathedral campus is much larger than the 15-acre Marywood campus in Orange where the diocese operated for decades.

“I feel that these substantive changes to the construction plan and operations of the campus were needed to ensure the many diverse and essential ministries of our diocese are maintained and well-funded, while we continue to transform our new cathedral,” Vann said in an email.

When the diocese took over the campus, the buildings were lacking maintenance and needed repair, said Father Christopher Smith, rector and episcopal vicar.

The first step was to repair the Arboretum and get it ready for St. Callistus parishioners, who moved in to Christ Cathedral from their church in Garden Grove.

The Arboretum had to be retrofitted and air-conditioned, and even the walls and glass had to be replaced, costing the diocese about $7 million, Smith said.

In addition, millions were spent to renovate the offices in the Tower of Hope building and the school, Christ Cathedral Academy, he said.

Now, on any given Sunday, about 11,000 people worship at the Arboretum with services held in English, Spanish, Vietnamese and Chinese.

“The goal is to maintain a campus that welcomes all, as we build on Rev. Schuller’s legacy,” Smith said.

LOCAL PARISHES CONCERNED

The burgeoning cost of renovating the cathedral has spread concern around the diocese, which is home to about 62 individual parishes or neighborhood churches.

“The local parish is where Catholic life thrives,” said Bailey, who is a member of the new board overseeing the renovation project. “This is where weddings, baptisms and funerals take place.”

Bailey says he does not want to see renovation efforts take precedence over needs of local parishes and programs.

His congregation “reacted with shock and dismay” when they heard about the underestimation of funds needed, renovation getting out of hand and the bishop having to shoot down requests to borrow from individual parish coffers and from pension and retirement funds set aside for priests.

Many of his congregants and others have written to the bishop airing their concerns, Bailey said.

In an April 10 newsletter to his parish, Bailey expressed shock that the diocese had not based initial renovation costs on “serious study or professional recommendations, but on quick guesses ... which were grossly wrong.”

“Like, millions and millions of dollars wrong,” Bailey wrote.

Bailey added he is comforted by Vann’s leadership and efforts to rein in costs.

“It is slowly coming under control,” he said. “And that’s the good news.”

Prince set to top UK singles and albums charts

Prince is set to top both the UK’s singles and albums charts as fans rush to buy the artist’s back catalogue after his shock death.

The funk-rock performer died on Thursday, aged 57, at his Paisley Park home near Minneapolis, Minnesota, where he was found collapsed in a lift.

Within 24 hours of his death, Prince’s music had jumped into the top 10 of the official albums chart, despite much of it not being available on streaming services such as Spotify and Deezer.
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The latest early sales figures provided by the Official Charts Company indicate that Prince is on track to take top spot in both charts on Friday.

Data from the first day of the chart week indicates that his 1984 anthem Purple Rain is a strong early contender for the top-selling single. When Doves Cry is on track for second place, with Kiss at No 4 and 1999 in fifth.

The only other artist holding their own against Prince is Drake, with One Dance siting in third spot.

With much of Prince’s back catalogue not available on streaming services, the addition of streaming data could affect the estimates, the Official Charts Company said.

If Purple Rain does take top spot, it would be the singer’s second UK No 1, following 1994’s The Most Beautiful Girl in the World. Purple Rain only reached No 8 when it was released in 1984.

Early estimates for the albums chart show Prince LPs dominating half the top 10, based on 24 hours’ worth of data.

On course for No 1 is The Very Best Of, with Ultimate in second position and Purple Rain in third.

Fifth position looks set to be taken by The Hits/The B-Sides, with Sign O’ The Times in sixth.

Prince has to date had five UK No 1 albums: Lovesexy (1988), the Batman soundtrack the following year, Graffiti Bridge (1990), the “Love Symbol” album (1992) and Come (1994).

The rankings are released on Friday at 5.45pm on Official Charts.

Search goes on for gunman who shot 8 relatives to death in rural Ohio

PIKETON, Ohio – A day after eight members of one family were found dead with gunshots to the head at four properties in rural southern Ohio, authorities on Saturday continued the scramble to determine who targeted that clan and why.

Investigators said they’ve interviewed more than 30 people hoping to find leads in the deaths of the seven adults and 16-year-old boy whose bodies were found Friday at homes southwest of Piketon.

All were shot in the head, authorities said, and it appeared some were killed as they slept, including a mother in bed with her 4-day-old baby nearby. The newborn and two other small children were not hurt.

Authorities said all the victims were members of the Rhoden family, but they declined to provide any more information about them.

Investigators said that none of the deaths appeared self-inflicted and that they believed at least one assailant remained at large, considered armed and dangerous. Investigators were following up what they described as an “overwhelming” amount of tips, but no one had been arrested.

Authorities urged surviving members of the Rhoden family to take precautions and offered help, and they recommended that area residents also be wary.

The exact timing of the shootings remained unclear. Authorities first got word in an emergency call shortly before 8 a.m. Friday from someone reporting blood in a home with two males possibly dead, and responding deputies were flagged down about more victims at two others homes, Pike County Sheriff Charles Reader said.

Two of the crime scenes are within walking distance of each other along a sparsely populated, winding road that leads into wooded hills from a rural highway. The third residence is more than a mile away, and the fourth home, where a man’s body was found later Friday, is on a different road, at least a 10-minute drive away, said the investigation’s leader, Benjamin Suver, a special agent in charge with BCI.

Investigators blocked off wide areas around the crime scenes, but aerial photos showed law enforcement vehicles parked outside the properties. One scene appeared to have a trailer home and several others buildings a short walk apart, with a school bus and numerous other vehicles parked in the grass around the property. Another had a home surrounded by trees, with a red garage or barn nearby.

Reader and Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine said they met with over 100 relatives and friends of the family at a church Friday to share what was known and field questions.

They said work by DeWine’s employees from the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation to process the crime scenes and collect evidence was expected to stretch into Saturday. The FBI in Cincinnati said it was monitoring the case and offered assistance if needed.

Authorities refused to discuss details about the crime scenes, such as the type or number of weapons used, what evidence was found and whether anything appeared to be missing from the homes.

They didn’t identify the dead by name but confirmed all victims were members of the Rhoden family. The owner of at least two of the properties is listed as Christopher Rhoden, according to Pike County auditor’s records.

Reader said he knew the family but declined to say why or how, saying he wanted to be respectful of the grieving family.

Gov. John Kasich, campaigning in Connecticut for his Republican presidential bid, said his office was monitoring the investigation, and he vowed that whoever’s responsible will be brought to justice.

The shooting left some people on edge in and around Pike County, an economically distressed area that’s home to about 28,000 people and a shuttered Cold War-era uranium plant whose cleanup provides hundreds of local jobs.

Still, many people went about their business Friday night, grocery shopping or eating out or sipping drinks on their front porches. At the small Pike County Dogwood Festival in Piketon, roughly 10 miles from the crime scenes, families with children in balloon hats walked among crafters and rides, slurping lemon shakes and snack-stand foods.

Longtime resident Harold Kunkle, 81, said attendance seemed much lower than anticipated, and he attributed that to news of the shootings.

“Everybody’s nervous, not knowing what to expect,” he said.

Cheerios removes Prince tweet

 When famous people die, it isn't just fans who react.

Some brands decide that they, too, must offer their respect and condolences in some way.

Perhaps it's to show customers that they understand them. Or perhaps it's just to snag a little news for themselves.

When Prince died Thursday, many companies and groups emitted tweets of purple sympathy.

NASA, for example, featured a purple nebula.

Lenovo tweeted: "He embodied so much of what we prize most: fearlessness, love and a refusal to stand still."

That one might have seemed a touch strained. Why insert yourself into someone else's death?

Cheerios, based in Prince's home state of Minnesota, went a little further. It adorned its Twitter account with a "Rest In Peace" message in which the dot over the "i" was a Cheerio.

This was viewed by some as crass commercialism. For example, tweeter Coin Flip Experts featured it in a tweet with the thought: "Imagine Cheerios sending this to you after your Dad dies."

The Cheerios tweet was soon removed.
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Cheerios parent company General Mills didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. However, the company told Ad Age: "As a Minnesota brand, Cheerios wanted to acknowledge the loss of a musical legend in our hometown. But we quickly decided that we didn't want the tweet to be misinterpreted, and removed it out of respect for Prince and those mourning."

Cheerios is far from alone in tortured tweeting. Just last week, KFC in Australia tweeted an overly suggestive photo. That tweet, too, was quickly pulled. The Cheerios tweet, however, seems particularly unfortunate because the brand is local.

One option for a brand is always to say nothing. A second is simply to say precisely what you'd say to the family of anyone who died.

Without any brand gimmick thrown in.

'Man, Oh Manichewitz': When The Jewish Wine Was Big With Gentiles, Too

Passover Seders are steeped in tradition — ancient rituals that Jewish families invoke and repeat year after year. For many families, the lengthy prayers and symbolic food are accompanied by Manischewitz wine, a sweet, juicy variety made from Concord grapes and plenty of sugar. The historian Roger Horowitz recently joked about the wine during a lecture at the Brooklyn Historical Society, in which he reminisced about his family's Passover meals.

"Another ritual we had to endure was my father complaining about Manischewitz," he said to a chuckling crowd.

He was kidding, at least a little. "I didn't really mind Manischewitz at all," Horowitz tells me over the phone. But, he adds the wine has earned a reputation for being kind of hokey. "It's brought out for tradition's sake, not because the folks drinking it are looking forward to the taste," Horowitz says. His family, like many others, preferred drier wines to the saccharine variety. But at Passover, they poured some Manischewitz out for the prophet Elijah. "We thought, 'this is about tradition,' and somehow, that seemed appropriate," Horowitz says.

But this wine so often associated with Jewish tradition has its own history that, Horowitz says, has been surprisingly forgotten. In his new book, Kosher USA: How Coke Became Kosher and Other Tales of Modern Food, Horowitz explores how Manischewitz wine became such a fixture at the Jewish dining table — and a runaway crossover success with non-Jews, too.
Kosher USA
Kosher USA

How Coke Became Kosher and Other Tales of Modern Food

by Roger Horowitz

Hardcover, 303 pages
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The Manischewitz food company was founded in Ohio in 1888, specializing in kosher foods like matzo. After the repeal of Prohibition, the secular Monarch Wine Company struck a deal with Manischewitz to license its name for a brand of wine. The agreement also stipulated that the Monarch Wine Company would get to borrow the Manischewitz rabbis for kosher certification.

The wine was fermented and bottled in a sprawling facility at the Bush Terminal, on the still-industrial stretch of 2nd Avenue in Brooklyn. The location was convenient for a handful of reasons: The nearby railroad carted in Concord grapes from farms in upstate New York. Ports made it possible to send shipments off. Lower Manhattan, on the other side of the harbor, was still a thriving Jewish community.

In the 1940s, the branding emphasized the wine's religious origins: The label featured a rabbi with a long beard holding a glass of wine in one hand and a sacred text in the other. The word "Sacramental" was splashed in all caps across the label, which was also adorned with Hebrew lettering.

Manischewitz wasn't the only wine company to leverage religious iconography to move bottles; the marketplace was flush with kosher wine brands. The difference, Horowitz says, is that those other companies tended to "be made by Jews, for Jews." Instead, he says, Manischewitz "mobilized the kosher characteristics, Hebrew lettering, and imagery as a way to sell to non-Jews, too."

A 1954 article in Commentary magazine — founded about a decade earlier by the American Jewish Committee — documented the trend. The reporter noted that, though kosher wine was, first and foremost, a sacramental drink, sales records suggested that it was being guzzled by secular folks, too. "Sales graphs show peaks at Christmas and Thanksgiving several times higher than for Passover," the article states. "Even such a relatively minor occasion as St. Patrick's Day causes a discernible rise."

Turns out, the makers of Manischewitz were actively wooing gentile consumers – and specifically targeting African-Americans in northern cities. In the 1950s, a doo wop group known as The Crows released a single called the "Mambo Shevitz." It wasn't a chart-topper.

But the lyrics borrowed from the wine's promotional copy — the catchphrase "Man, oh Manischewitz" — and nodded to the contemporary ballroom dance craze. "Man, oh, man, that music, baby, dig that beat," the singer crooned. "Like a glass of wine, it's so cool and sweet."

Black musicians also played into the brand's print advertising campaigns. In his book, Horowitz recounts how a group called the Ink Spots featured in a 1950 ad in the Pittsburgh-Courier newspaper. "Manischewitz kosher wine harmonizes with us — sweetly!" the text declared. "It's our favorite wine, too."
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Later, Manischewitz wine tapped entertainer Sammy Davis Jr. to hawk the drink in a series of television spots. In one, for the company's Almonetta wine, he clutched a goblet in one hand and used the other to skitter a finger across the piano, pounding out a clunky melody in the rhythm of Alouette, the singsong French children's ditty about plucking feathers from a lark. Debonair, shirt slightly unbuttoned in front of a fully loaded wood bar, he looked suave — like a pretty fun guy to drink with.

"Try some after dinner tonight," Davis says in the ad. "It's delicious." Davis was a savvy choice for the company — a slick celebrity who was familiar to African-American consumers, and had also converted to Judaism. The choice "wasn't going to antagonize Jewish consumers," Horowitz explains.

It's clear that the ads did get the wine on people's radar. In his book, Horowitz cites a survey from 1957 that polled Jews, African-Americans, and white gentiles in New York, L.A., and Detroit. It found that 72 percent had seen a Manischewitz ad on TV, and nearly half had heard a radio ad. By 1973, the company was pouring about 85 percent of its magazine advertising budget into placements in Ebony, Horowitz writes.

Horowitz also speculates that the wine might have been pleasantly familiar to some African-American consumers because the Concord grape taste was similar to the varieties of wine commonly made from crushed scuppernong or muscadine grapes in the American South. (Horowitz told me that he's even heard stories about Baptist churches purchasing kosher wine during Prohibition, because it was a straightforward way to skirt regulations.) Horowitz writes that, by the mid-1950s, some 80 percent of Manischewitz wine consumers weren't Jewish. Even in 1981, he writes, Forbes magazine described the typical Manischewitz drinker as an urban, blue-collar African-American man.

Today, Manischewitz isn't working so hard to appeal to new customers, says associate brand manager Shannon Brennan. The wine is now under the umbrella of Constellation Brands, and is produced in a factory in upstate New York. Brennan says that Manischewitz wine doesn't have a marketing budget. She says that "it has its core consumers," but added: "It's not a brand that we're looking to grow. It's maintaining — it's in coasting mode at the moment."

Brennan says that the company produced somewhere in the ballpark of 900,000 cases during the last fiscal year. That translates to around 2.14 million gallons. At the height of the brand's popularity, Horowitz says, it was churning out about 13 million gallons per year.

Even as it tried to woo a broader audience, Manischewitz didn't shrug off its religious origins. When the company released a brand extension focusing on fancier products, like the Cream White Concord wine in 1968, Horowitz writes, it shrunk the figure of the rabbi on the label — but he was still there, along with plenty of Hebrew lettering.

These days, Brennan notes, the rabbi has been supplanted by a grape. The historic packaging is familiar, she says, but "you're not going to find it on the shelf—and if you do, goodness, don't drink it, I don't know how old it is."

Historically, the company navigated the conflicting interests of heritage and crossover appeal. It probably couldn't have done otherwise. "A name like Manischewitz is unmistakably Jewish," Horowitz says. "It's a little like 'Horowitz.' No one's ever mistaken me for anything but Jewish."

Sears, Kmart To Close 78 Stores This Summer — 3 Locations In Michigan

DETROIT (WWJ/AP) – Sears Holdings Corp. is closing another 78 stores, including three in Michigan, as it looks to restore profitability.

In all, 68 Kmart stores and 10 Sears stores will close. That accounts for about 5 percent of the company’s store base, which is nearly 1,700 stores.

Locations closing in Michigan include: the Super K on Van Born Road in Taylor, the Kmart on Houghton Lake Drive in Houghton Lake, and the Sears on Eastman Avenue in Midland. The Super K store is closing in mid-September, while the other two stores will close in late July.

    Not so super: 78 K-Mart, Sears stores closing. Taylor shopper: "It's sad. I grew up on Blue Light Specials." @WWJ950 pic.twitter.com/i1vOC7QbuS

    — Mike Campbell (@reportermikec) April 22, 2016

The ailing company, based in Hoffman Estates, Illinois, had said in February that it would accelerate the closing of unprofitable stores following a “challenging” holiday season. The move announced Thursday is expected to generate a “meaningful level” of cash from the liquidation of store inventories and from the sale or sublease of some of the related real estate, it said Thursday.

“The decision to close stores is a difficult but necessary step as we take aggressive actions to strengthen our company, fund our transformation and restore Sears Holdings to profitability,” said Edward S. Lampert, chairman and CEO of Sears Holdings in a statement. “We’re focusing on our best members, our best categories, and our best stores as we work to accelerate our transformation.”

The closings follow a comprehensive review of the company’s locations that took into account store performance and the timing of lease expirations.

Sears Holdings has struggled for years with weakening sales, unable to keep up with companies that sell appliances, like Home Depot, or general merchandise, like Wal-Mart, or everything, as is the case with Amazon.com. The company has been selling assets to raise cash. In 2011, it operated 4,000 stores. Sears is also shifting away from its focus on running a store network into a member-focused business. Loyal shoppers receive incentives to buy. But those moves haven’t gained much traction with shoppers.

In the fourth quarter, which includes the holiday shopping season, revenue at stores opened at least a year fell 6.9 percent at Sears, and 7.2 percent at Kmart. That’s a key indicator of a retailer’s health because it excludes the volatility from stores that recently opened or closed. The company saw its fourth-quarter loss widen to $580 million, from a $159 million loss a year ago.

Sears declined to say how many workers will be affected from the store closures, but it said that an overwhelming majority of the jobs are part-time positions. Eligible associates will receive severance and will have the chance to apply for open positions at area Sears or Kmart stores.

Married firefighter 'is found dead with a suicide note' in Shenandoah National Park one week after phoning in sick and vanishing from her marital home

Female remains found on Thursday in Virginia's Shenandoah National Park are likely those of a paramedic-firefighter who disappeared a week ago, Virginia State Police said.

Police spokeswoman Corinne Geller said in an email late on Thursday that troopers have preliminarily identified the body found as Nicole Mittendorff of Woodbridge, Virginia.

The Virginia medical examiner will have to confirm the identity through an autopsy and the body was taken to the chief medical examiner's office in Manassas, Geller said.

The evidence collected during the investigation, including a 'suicide note' found in Mittendorff's car, leads troopers to believe no foul play was involved in her death, she said. The contents of the note have not been publicly revealed.

Mittendorff's sister, Jennifer Clardy Chalmers, released a statement saying, 'We believe that Nicole has been found and is finally coming home, however not in the way we anticipated. This is not the positive outcome that we continued to hope and pray for over the past week. ... We thank everyone for their time, dedication and support in our search to find Nicole and ask that you keep our family in your prayers in the challenging days ahead.'

Mittendorff went missing a week ago after phoning in to work sick and leaving the home she shared with her husband.

Her abandoned car was later found in the Virginia National Park.

A park spokesman said: 'At approximately 2:00 p.m. a ground team of National Park Service and Virginia State Police personnel discovered a body in a remote location more than a mile from the Whiteoak Canyon parking area and about 330 yards from the trail in treacherous rocky terrain. National Park Service and Virginia State Police are currently still processing the scene,' said a statement from Shenandoah National Park.

Earlier on Thursday, the Facebook page Find Nicole said: 'Our hearts are broken. We thank you for your support and ask that you keep our family in your prayers in the challenging days ahead.'