We are in the process of building a yoga studio. The Asheville Yoga Center has been growing since its inception in 1997. We’d been looking, unsuccessfully, for a new space to expand into for several years now, especially after our rent unexpectedly doubled two years ago (thank you, landlord). When a lot came up for sale just a few doors down from our current studio location, we took the jump and purchased it with plans to build our dream studio. The process from the first call to closing, took five months. I’m hoping the process picks up momentum, though, I’m beginning to seriously doubt that.
Lately, lots of people have been asking how the building is going, have I broken ground yet and am I excited. I think I can sum up how it’s going in two words, scope creep. Scope creep is when, after you’ve started a project, you add to it and add to it and add to it. That seems to be what we are doing right now. And it’s no surprise really; I think it is our modus operandi.
As I was just updating our yoga center newsletter I realized just how far the scope of our teacher training has creeped up over the years. It’s more like a scope sprint or high jump really. We started our teacher training program, over a decade ago, as a single 230-hour, nine-month program offered once a year. This year, we have 6 of the 230-hour programs running in different formats and locations. And what really blows me away is the fact that our 500-hour teacher training program has grown to 13 different modules offered, with a total of 25 advanced studies events currently scheduled. This is not even getting into all the workshops we offer now. Neither my wife, Stephanie, nor I saw that coming when we set up shop in the aerobics studio of Training Partners Gym so many years ago. I’m so thankful for all the people that have helped us grow over the years.
OK, back to the building. The short of it is, it will probably be a couple months before we break ground and the building has nearly doubled from what we were originally planning. If you want to know how that happened, read on.
There are so many factors involved in the whole design phase. The biggest seem to be city zoning and building codes and budget. As we got deeper into the city code, we realized that we could move some of our parking off-site. Hopefully, we’ll be able to put in parking on Merrimon Place, adjacent to the building. So, the original plan, which was pretty much all building and parking lot, which I didn’t love anyway, opened up significantly.
With that change and the news that more funding was available than at first, we started playing with the idea of adding a second smaller studio room. Then, there was a one-floor plan and a two-floor plan on the table. After confirming with the city building code department and our funding, we settled on a nice one-floor plan with two yoga rooms, a generous waiting room, plenty of outdoor gather space, sheltered waiting space, a meditation garden and room for outdoor yoga. This was all very exciting to me.
With this new plan on the table, the thought arose of not renting out a second facility (the current studio) for teacher trainings and workshops, but folding everything back under one roof again and into one mortgage. Most of what I loved about the plan immediately preceding this one was left intact. We moved back to a two-story building, which enabled us to shrink the footprint and have a second waiting room. We lost the interior space the stairwell takes up and we will have to go to a more stringent fire code with this plan. I’m hoping we can avoid a sprinklered building, which may be a deal breaker. There will still be plenty of room on site for outdoor gathering, waiting for classes, having a spot to put your shoes on or off, quiet reflection and the possibility of outdoor yoga classes.
So, that is where we are at the moment – planning on a meeting this week with the city to make sure all of our current assumptions about fire code, parking, bathrooms, occupancy, assembly and business classification types and such are true and we can move ahead with the details of it all. Nothing is really set in stone as of yet, but there are certainly a lot of wonderful options we have to work with.
Update: Between the time I wrote this and posted it, we are now looking at a single-floor, two-yoga-room option again as well. Ahh, decisions, decisions.
I’ll keep you informed. My next post will be about green building and decision making.
Cheers,
Sunny Keach
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I am so stoked for y’all! Yay!