Diwali Update

Welcome to the inaugural, Diwali edition of our newsletter, sharing the latest updates and progress with the new ISKCON temple in Parsippany, New Jersey.

May this joyous and sacred month of Damodara find you and your family absorbed in spiritual bliss. This is the time of year when the air becomes crisp and our homes are lit up with the lamps of loving offerings to Lord Sri Krishna.

The ISKCON Parsippany Temple Project is moving along very well. Following an amazingly successful Bhumi Puja Festival and an inspiring fund-raising total of over $2.4 million in pledges just in the last few months alone, the devotees of Lord Krishna are moving full-steam ahead with the next steps. 

On this auspicious day of Diwali we have just received the Letter of Intent from the bank stating that they have gone through our application that included numerous financial statements as well as the proposed construction details and that they find this project to be very sound and realistic. This is wonderful news for this project as it will entail the approval of a $3.8 million loan that will go toward the construction of the temple. The letter of intent while not constituting a formal approval from the bank is a definitive indication that the bank has internally approved the loan and will require us to complete a number of formalities before finally sanctioning the loan and releasing the funds. This is a very exciting development in this project and gives us full confidence that we will be able to meet our targets and milestones over the course of this transcendental initiative in the service of Srila Prabhupada.

On the construction front we have just submitted the application to the township for the demolition of the existing structures on the property to make way for the rest of the ground clearing process. We anticipate that this will take place sometime in November. This will be followed by the site work that entails the installation of an extensive and sophisticated storm-water drainage system and parts of the parking lot. The team is also in the process of finalizing some of the cosmetic aspects of the design that will be in place before the submission of the detailed building drawings for the construction permits. We will provide detailed updates on this aspect in upcoming communications.

Hare Krishna!