OUR LADY STAR OF THE SEA CATHOLIC CHURCH
( PONTE VEDRA BEACH, FLORIDA )

A fixture in the Northeast Florida beach community for over 30 years, this humble building was expanded from 13,300 square feet to over 20,000 square feet including a new porte cochere at the entrance to the addition and a detached 40 foot tall bell tower.

The existing church was constructed using rigid steel frames at 15 feet on center and utilized 3” tongue and groove wood roof decking to tie the frames together. The renovations included expanding on three sides of the nave and provided additional seating on the north and south ends as well as a new gathering area, restrooms, and priest’s quarters in the front of the church.

This renovation provided many unique challenges. In order to enhance the view of the altar from the new seating areas, every other existing rigid frame column was removed keeping the existing roof. To accomplish this, the remaining columns, and their foundations, were reinforced and a 36 inch deep steel beam, running perpendicular to the existing frames, was placed over the knee joints of the existing frames. This large steel beam was supported on the reinforced columns that were to remain while it provided support to the frames which had columns removed. To eliminate any additional loading of the existing rigid steel frames, 30 inch deep steel beams, at 30 feet on center, running parallel to the existing frames, spanned from the new columns at the perimeter of the addition to the new 36 inch deep beam and cantilevered over the 36 inch deep beam before attaching them to the existing steel frames. Open web steel joists were used to complete the new roof structure.

The bell tower structure is structural steel and was designed to be completely shop fabricated which allowed it to be erected in a matter of hours. The shop-fabricated structure even included continuous steel angles to support the brick veneer.