It would be exactly as it is for people really. A lodge with a fair amount of money would own, because it can afford to upkeep and the building might act as a future investment of value for the lodge.
A poor lodge without much money would rent, because property ownership is a strategic liability unless you have ample resources to keep it up. If you find yourself unable to cover maintenance, buildings are an albatross; they *can* be investments if you keep up on the upkeep.
Just like people can be "house poor" by over-extending themselves and buying when they can't afford, oh boy lodges can be house poor too, there are lots of them, I know several buildings in my state that are in distressed sales. 20 years of inadequate maintenance and now they're selling for much less than they should, but the market is what it is.
So point #1 is you have to have the money to have the choice, effectively. *If* you have the money, the brethren can pick whatever's best for them. Yes, people will argue rent is more over time, but this misses the point about the time, expense, and distraction of maintenance. I'll sum up this point with an old chestnut that hits the dynamic: "The rich man buys a pair of $100 boots. The poor man buys 3 pairs of cheap $50 boots". The same goes with renting & buying.
But stepping back from that: "The Building" is an emotional 3rd rail for a lot of Masons I know, as are matters of money, so (quite unfortunately) usually I see these kinds of strategic decisions only made when circumstance forces a WM's hand. I can't recall a lodge getting together, thinking the issues through, and making a change on this matter when the circumstances weren't forced.
The fellowship meetings would move around to various locations. Fancy restaurants. Museums. Parks. Etc. We would rent a conference room or a group campsite as needed for one day. The stated business meetings would be held at a small room decorated as a Gentlemen's Victorian Era Study. With leather bound books and oil paintings decorating the walls. A large fireplace, and luxurious chairs and Sofas. And a selection of fine spirits and tobaccos. This room could be owned or rented and would be available to any member at any time for personal reflection or as a meeting place for serious discussion, or even a romantic dinner with one's spouse.
Some masonic buildings are giant albatrosses built in the heydays of the fraternity. Giant edifices meant to service hundreds of brothers at meetings. Today, with the shrinking numbers, these once glorious structures are expensive anchors that lodges can’t afford.
But not all lodges are in that situation. Obviously brothers with such buildings need to seriously consider selling and either building a smaller, more modern multi-use facility, or rent meeting space from someone else. But for others, their lodge building is doing just fine. Either the lodge has solid financial foundations to maintain it, or the brothers have managed the building much better.
Personally, I think each lodge should own their building. Chances are, they already do, if they have been around for 100 years. They no longer pay mortgages or rent, and have found tax exempt status to alleviate property taxes. They should have sufficient funds to cover expenses, and a steady income from other sources (rentals, etc) to build up a nest egg for emergencies.
Renting takes care of a lot of that worry, but optically, shouldn’t we have a place to call our own, for the rest of the public to see and appreciate? Lodge rooms are uniquely designed and built, specific for its purpose. Here in port orchard, there is an art gallery that is in a building that was built at the late 1800s originally by the masons. That building still contains elements of its original purpose to this day. The building was sold to the eagles in the early 50s to help fund a new building construction a few miles up the road. Both buildings still stand.
For lodges in this situation, they should own their own building. Why sell it if it’s not an issue? We do need to have a space that can be pointed to as a masonic building. Is it more impressive to have our lodge meet in a strip mall?
Lodges should all endeavor to own property, but within reason and economy of scale. Property is an investment, if made wisely.
Personally, I think it requires a certain density of men or funds to maintain a opex budget that will support a temple. Case in point. Our physical building requires 75% of our dues structure to operate. This leaves no expendable funds for improvement or investments in modernizing. I cant tell you how many times, I've heard a treasurers report saying that they have less than 10K dollars on hand and the treasurer thinks they are financially healthy. Mean while the building is falling down around them. My lodges Roof replacement cost 40K dollars, the AC units which are about 12 years old now are going to cost us 15-25K to replace. The elevator control boards alone, are going to cost us 68K all in the next 15 or so years. On the back of this, were looking at a 4% attrition rate year over year. Our Property insurance went up 68% in the last 3 years and our GL is increasing per capita. Mean while our dues structure just maintains the facilities operations. Its going to be a problem in our near future. Own, or rent you will have to pay to have a space to operate. I suspect that in the near future, unless better plans or made, or Funds are found in the form of estate donations all lodges will be trying to cost justify their existence. If We're going to own a building, its going to have to generate positive revenue. To do that it will need to be modern and comparable for other venues in its area.
I would also point to our current grand lodge building. It is much too big for its needs and has to be bleeding money in operating costs. As we were discussing earlier, GL has a massive budget and expenses that far exceeding its needs, imo. Some will argue (rightfully) that the grand lodge needs its own space that reflects positively on the fraternity. The same can be said for the lodges themselves.
Some of the best Masonic meetings that I have attended were with the Alnwick club and held in the meeting room of a hotel in Bellevue. We seem to become obsessed with our buildings and work to keep the buildings up. Much more work is put into the building than any other part of Masonry. Unfortunately the builidngs comsume some good men who become lost in the upkeep of an old building where often disputes arise as to what is happening with and in the building itself. Masonry is not the building It is us!!! We need to put our time into building good Masons not in keeping old buildings going.
There is no saving money by renting. The owner knows the cost of upkeep and equate that into the rental with a percentage of profit every month. Ownership hands down is the best alternative, and it can be used to rent out to gain extra income.
In a totally different new approach (and getting way old school), I'd purchase mineral rights without the land. Then call up Elon Musk's Boring Company to make roadways and VITRIOL Temples underground.
It would depend on attendance size, financial strength and building condition, of the Lodge.
If attendance was less than 20. I would definately rent.
The only way a large owned lodge with small attendance could work is by rentals. Rent als depend on condition of building and many masonic lodge buildings are notin good condition.
Renting simplifies lodge management and members can concentrate on masonic business.
An alternative would be for a number of lodges to get together and set up a Masonic Center with professional management, but that can raise difficult relationships.
I would rent only if there was no other possible option. Proper planning would be a lodge with an upper floor, with an income property on the lower floor or floors. I'd rather have two floors of income producing property than one floor.
Myrtle #108 owns the building. We bought the dirt in 1915 and have been there every since. The first generation of Myrtle Masons had the forsight to understand that a Lodge needs an income stream, and that dues alone could not produce an income large enough or depenable enough to sustain a lodge.
Rental space can be a highly successful business model, but the one drawback is that too many Lodges fail at both building management and at financial planning. Part of that problem is that too few Masons are either business owners or have large scale businesses management experience. The result is amatures runing a lodge into slow motion suicide. An example of this would came from a Brother who left a sizable estate to the Lodge. Plans were made for building improvment and a small expansion which would include an elevator. The Temple Board, so I'm told, lost control of themselves and, through endless revisions, squandered over $80,000 on archetectual fees that should have cost no more than $5,000.
Another major failure was the installation of an elevator that is too small for emergency services. A third failure is a fire escape that has no hope of being functional to an older population in an emergency situation.
I'm told a story of a Lodge in NM that was in deep trouble. As a last ditch effort the Temple Board decided to hire a professional who would manage the building. A key part of the duties would be booking of the rental spaces. The offer was a base salary plus commission for each rental, with commission fees structured according to fraturnal, celebratioal and business. The result was that the building was booked out a minimum of 8 to 10 months, and in some instances out to 24 months.
Why does it matter?
It would be exactly as it is for people really. A lodge with a fair amount of money would own, because it can afford to upkeep and the building might act as a future investment of value for the lodge.
A poor lodge without much money would rent, because property ownership is a strategic liability unless you have ample resources to keep it up. If you find yourself unable to cover maintenance, buildings are an albatross; they *can* be investments if you keep up on the upkeep.
Just like people can be "house poor" by over-extending themselves and buying when they can't afford, oh boy lodges can be house poor too, there are lots of them, I know several buildings in my state that are in distressed sales. 20 years of inadequate maintenance and now they're selling for much less than they should, but the market is what it is.
So point #1 is you have to have the money to have the choice, effectively. *If* you have the money, the brethren can pick whatever's best for them. Yes, people will argue rent is more over time, but this misses the point about the time, expense, and distraction of maintenance. I'll sum up this point with an old chestnut that hits the dynamic: "The rich man buys a pair of $100 boots. The poor man buys 3 pairs of cheap $50 boots". The same goes with renting & buying.
But stepping back from that: "The Building" is an emotional 3rd rail for a lot of Masons I know, as are matters of money, so (quite unfortunately) usually I see these kinds of strategic decisions only made when circumstance forces a WM's hand. I can't recall a lodge getting together, thinking the issues through, and making a change on this matter when the circumstances weren't forced.
The fellowship meetings would move around to various locations. Fancy restaurants. Museums. Parks. Etc. We would rent a conference room or a group campsite as needed for one day. The stated business meetings would be held at a small room decorated as a Gentlemen's Victorian Era Study. With leather bound books and oil paintings decorating the walls. A large fireplace, and luxurious chairs and Sofas. And a selection of fine spirits and tobaccos. This room could be owned or rented and would be available to any member at any time for personal reflection or as a meeting place for serious discussion, or even a romantic dinner with one's spouse.
Some masonic buildings are giant albatrosses built in the heydays of the fraternity. Giant edifices meant to service hundreds of brothers at meetings. Today, with the shrinking numbers, these once glorious structures are expensive anchors that lodges can’t afford.
But not all lodges are in that situation. Obviously brothers with such buildings need to seriously consider selling and either building a smaller, more modern multi-use facility, or rent meeting space from someone else. But for others, their lodge building is doing just fine. Either the lodge has solid financial foundations to maintain it, or the brothers have managed the building much better.
Personally, I think each lodge should own their building. Chances are, they already do, if they have been around for 100 years. They no longer pay mortgages or rent, and have found tax exempt status to alleviate property taxes. They should have sufficient funds to cover expenses, and a steady income from other sources (rentals, etc) to build up a nest egg for emergencies.
Renting takes care of a lot of that worry, but optically, shouldn’t we have a place to call our own, for the rest of the public to see and appreciate? Lodge rooms are uniquely designed and built, specific for its purpose. Here in port orchard, there is an art gallery that is in a building that was built at the late 1800s originally by the masons. That building still contains elements of its original purpose to this day. The building was sold to the eagles in the early 50s to help fund a new building construction a few miles up the road. Both buildings still stand.
For lodges in this situation, they should own their own building. Why sell it if it’s not an issue? We do need to have a space that can be pointed to as a masonic building. Is it more impressive to have our lodge meet in a strip mall?
Lodges should all endeavor to own property, but within reason and economy of scale. Property is an investment, if made wisely.
Personally, I think it requires a certain density of men or funds to maintain a opex budget that will support a temple. Case in point. Our physical building requires 75% of our dues structure to operate. This leaves no expendable funds for improvement or investments in modernizing. I cant tell you how many times, I've heard a treasurers report saying that they have less than 10K dollars on hand and the treasurer thinks they are financially healthy. Mean while the building is falling down around them. My lodges Roof replacement cost 40K dollars, the AC units which are about 12 years old now are going to cost us 15-25K to replace. The elevator control boards alone, are going to cost us 68K all in the next 15 or so years. On the back of this, were looking at a 4% attrition rate year over year. Our Property insurance went up 68% in the last 3 years and our GL is increasing per capita. Mean while our dues structure just maintains the facilities operations. Its going to be a problem in our near future. Own, or rent you will have to pay to have a space to operate. I suspect that in the near future, unless better plans or made, or Funds are found in the form of estate donations all lodges will be trying to cost justify their existence. If We're going to own a building, its going to have to generate positive revenue. To do that it will need to be modern and comparable for other venues in its area.
I would also point to our current grand lodge building. It is much too big for its needs and has to be bleeding money in operating costs. As we were discussing earlier, GL has a massive budget and expenses that far exceeding its needs, imo. Some will argue (rightfully) that the grand lodge needs its own space that reflects positively on the fraternity. The same can be said for the lodges themselves.
Some of the best Masonic meetings that I have attended were with the Alnwick club and held in the meeting room of a hotel in Bellevue. We seem to become obsessed with our buildings and work to keep the buildings up. Much more work is put into the building than any other part of Masonry. Unfortunately the builidngs comsume some good men who become lost in the upkeep of an old building where often disputes arise as to what is happening with and in the building itself. Masonry is not the building It is us!!! We need to put our time into building good Masons not in keeping old buildings going.
There is no saving money by renting. The owner knows the cost of upkeep and equate that into the rental with a percentage of profit every month. Ownership hands down is the best alternative, and it can be used to rent out to gain extra income.
In a totally different new approach (and getting way old school), I'd purchase mineral rights without the land. Then call up Elon Musk's Boring Company to make roadways and VITRIOL Temples underground.
It would depend on attendance size, financial strength and building condition, of the Lodge.
If attendance was less than 20. I would definately rent.
The only way a large owned lodge with small attendance could work is by rentals. Rent als depend on condition of building and many masonic lodge buildings are notin good condition.
Renting simplifies lodge management and members can concentrate on masonic business.
An alternative would be for a number of lodges to get together and set up a Masonic Center with professional management, but that can raise difficult relationships.
I would rent only if there was no other possible option. Proper planning would be a lodge with an upper floor, with an income property on the lower floor or floors. I'd rather have two floors of income producing property than one floor.
Myrtle #108 owns the building. We bought the dirt in 1915 and have been there every since. The first generation of Myrtle Masons had the forsight to understand that a Lodge needs an income stream, and that dues alone could not produce an income large enough or depenable enough to sustain a lodge.
Rental space can be a highly successful business model, but the one drawback is that too many Lodges fail at both building management and at financial planning. Part of that problem is that too few Masons are either business owners or have large scale businesses management experience. The result is amatures runing a lodge into slow motion suicide. An example of this would came from a Brother who left a sizable estate to the Lodge. Plans were made for building improvment and a small expansion which would include an elevator. The Temple Board, so I'm told, lost control of themselves and, through endless revisions, squandered over $80,000 on archetectual fees that should have cost no more than $5,000.
Another major failure was the installation of an elevator that is too small for emergency services. A third failure is a fire escape that has no hope of being functional to an older population in an emergency situation.
I'm told a story of a Lodge in NM that was in deep trouble. As a last ditch effort the Temple Board decided to hire a professional who would manage the building. A key part of the duties would be booking of the rental spaces. The offer was a base salary plus commission for each rental, with commission fees structured according to fraturnal, celebratioal and business. The result was that the building was booked out a minimum of 8 to 10 months, and in some instances out to 24 months.