Faith Family Church

Project Team

Structural Engineer: Thorson Baker & Associates
Owner: Faith Family Church
Architect: Braun & Steidl Architects, Inc.
General Contractor: Hammond Construction
Steel Joist Manufacturer: Vulcraft - St. Joe
Steel Detailer: Lucas Corporation
Steel Fabricator: Dover Tank & Plate Co.
Steel Erector: Selinsky Force

Project Type: Non-Industrial

Project Description

Faith Family church had outgrown their existing facility and sought a location with good highway visibility & access, plus plenty of space for a large building and parking. They settled on the site of an existing 300,000sf Hoover Vacuum factory. This 400’ x 600’ building with 28’ clear interior height and a partial mezzanine would be plenty of space for the growing congregation, including offices, classrooms, fellowship and worship spaces. However the existing 30’ x 40’ column grid was not ideally suited for the main 3800 seat Sanctuary space. Therefore the Project Team came up with a plan to demolish several bays of the existing structure and build a new 25,000sf building (with a long-span structural system including joists and joist girders) within the existing building.

What Makes This Project Interesting

It is a creative adaptive re-use of a factory, and a combination of existing & new structure. The new structure includes a long-span structural system which is not commonly seen in this area. Vulcraft designed their joist girders to include beam verticals to allow the structural framing to be integrated into their system.

Advantage Of The Chosen Structural System

The Sanctuary roof structural system utilizes four 18ft variable depth custom fabricated trusses spanning the 160ft across the sanctuary. The resulting spans between the custom trusses provide more reasonable spans to allow for the use of lightweight cost effective steel joists and joist girders to infill between the trusses. Steel joists were spaced at a maximum of 10ft on center supporting a 3in deep type “N” roof deck. The lightweight cost effective steel joists helped to offset the costly variable depth trusses providing a low aggregate system cost while accommodating the required long span column free space.

Project Scope

The entire building project included renovation/build-out of approximately 200,000sf of existing interior shell space, plus the new 25,000sf sanctuary structure, new parking lots, and two new canopies extending from the building. Although budget did not permit a complete exterior renovation five new entrances were created using glass curtainwall (aided by steel tube) and additional glass was used at the Chapel and at the Fellowship Hall.

Project Details

Project Construction Cost: $25,000,000.00
Joist cost, including fabrication and erection: $265,225.00
Size (square ft.): 225,000
Roof area using joists (square ft.): 32,300
Joist area (square ft.): 32,300
Joist engineering to delivery (# days): 84 days
Joist erection (# days): 9 days

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