A Quick Tour of the
Campus
By Mike Zaeske
Present-day Port Austin Bible
Campus, located just south of the corporate limits of the
A quick overview of the
property reveals the following basic statistics:
1)
The present
campus consists of about 24 acres of land.
2)
There are
presently a total of four two-story dormitory
buildings that are a part of the campus. Two are fully
furnished with a compliment of 70 beds between them. There are two large
bathroom facilities per dorm (one on each floor) with showers, lavatories, and commodes
adequate to accommodate all of the students who might be living there.
Additionally, there is a fully functional laundry room in each dorm. It is
still necessary to purchase some desks, floor lamps, and small appliances like
microwaves, etc., and a modern heating plant needs to be
installed in each of the four dorms, but for the most part, two of them
are ready to go, at least for warm weather activities. Two changes of bedding
are available for every bed.
3)
The ministry
headquarters presently is housed in a two-story building,
which has a home and some offices on the first floor, and has ten motel-style
rooms on the second. Originally, the building housed non-commissioned officers
and was designed around modules of two individual
bedrooms with a shared bathroom. Additionally, there is a lounge/TV area with a
small kitchen on the second floor and one room with a private bathroom. The
first floor has been remodeled and now contains the
ministry office in addition to a four-bedroom, two-bathroom living area with a
complete kitchen. This building was recently retrofitted
with a modern forced air furnace and a large capacity domestic hot water
system.
4)
A cafeteria
building capable of comfortably seating 80 people is central to the campus. It
contains two walk-in refrigerators, a walk-in freezer, a large pantry, a commercial
stove, two ovens, an outdoor brick grill, three sinks, a full set of utensils
and an office. It was licensed by the State of Michigan
Health Department until recently, but now, since there is no commercial
business need, the licensing was dropped. The building is also equipped with an
industrial dishwasher that needs some student-repair technicians to assist in
its repair so it can be reintegrated into the daily
kitchen clean-up chores campaign. While the dining hall is
designed to handle 80 comfortably, 120+ individuals could still be
easily accommodated by simply serving meals spread over two separate meal
shifts, should the situation warrant it. The dining hall presently also serves
as a meeting area for PABC’s morning Bible studies, a home-schooling classroom,
a board-game room, a musical practice area, and a place for late-night snackers
to gather before retiring.
5)
Another fairly large building on campus is the gym/meeting hall.
Certainly, it is also considered one of the main
buildings on campus, and, quite fittingly, it is a multi-use facility, too. It is divided into four parts. An “L shaped” assembly room that
easily seats about 65 people is at the south side of the building. This room
has a very high ceiling which has worked well for
music presentation. It is presently being used as a sanctuary where Sabbath-day
services open to the general public are conducted
every Saturday at
6)
Southwest and
across the street from the dining hall is another rather large building that
has a large meeting area, a food serving area, a lounge, two offices, and a
storage room. This could be used for Sabbath services,
daily worship meetings and possibly classes; however, its usage has been pushed
far into the future due to necessary repairs, which will take significant sums
of money.
7)
The motor pool
building can be found just south and to the east of
the back of the cafeteria. It has four full bays (20' height), an office, and a
classroom. It is in fairly good shape, both inside and
out, and would probably be best put to work if an auto-mechanics program could
be established! The industrial heating in the building is functional, lighting
and electrical power all appear to be adequate and operational, but modern auto
hoists and a full complement of tools need to be acquired.
8)
At the far southern
end of campus there is a standalone classroom/office/storage type building with
at least 600 square feet of usable space. No specific use for this building is
yet in the works although it has been considered as a
possible site for the library, which is instead currently housed in the
gym/meeting hall building.
9)
Several small
storage buildings are spread out across the campus.
10)
A two-lane bowling
alley lies to the east of the gym/meeting hall.
11)
An outdoor brick grill
is built into the rear of the cafeteria, and several
picnic tables are arranged nearby, providing an area suitable for large picnics.
12)
Two lighted
tennis courts are located just north of the motor-pool building. They each presently
need lighting and court repairs, which will probably attain a high priority
once the warm weather returns.
13)
A lighted
baseball/football field can be found at the south-western
corner of the campus.
14)
A children's
playground with slides, swings, and jungle-gyms is near
the tennis courts.
15)
A separate
cinderblock building, which is not contiguous with the main campus, lies to the
west of the campus. It contains at least 2000 square feet, but its interior could not idealistically be reconfigured into classrooms or
shop areas. At the very least, however, with a small amount of attention to its
roof, it will make for ideal storage.
There are additional properties
in the immediate vicinity of the present campus that could be
purchased any time in the future, but which would require some major
work before they might be incorporated into the overall campus environment.
These include:
- A 6000-square foot building with loading docks, a
three-foot concrete roof and bermed earth graded up against the lower portion
of most exterior walls. This building was originally designed
to withstand a nuclear attack, and we have been told the walls are so thick and
it is so sturdily built that the building requires little heating and cooling.
- An
1800-square foot building with a new interior and air conditioning, which has been used to house a pizza restaurant, would be ideally
suited as an office/welcome facility. The large parking area and large outdoor
sign area make it a definite consideration should this building come onto the
market.
- Northeast of campus there is a rather large frame church building. Should
this become available at the right time and for the right price, it would most likely be looked at very closely.
- About
a quarter mile south of the church building (about a half mile from campus)
there is an older farm house in rather nice repair which might be purchased and
used as an entry point with signs directing individuals to the campus.
There are also residential houses
in the area for sale at reasonable prices.