University of St. Augustine –
New Education Building
(St. Augustine, Florida)

The University of St. Augustine is one of the premier physical and occupational therapy universities in the country.  Based in St. Augustine, Florida, the university has been expanding in both its size and reach over the last fifteen years.  In order to accommodate both the current and future demands of its enrollment, the St. Augustine campus welcomed a new three-story, 100,000 square foot education building.  This new building will house several new classrooms, separate wet and dry anatomy laboratories, fitness center, occupational therapy clinic, physical therapy clinic, therapy pool, and an English pub.

The structure consists of open web steel roof joists and composite steel floor beams supported on interior steel columns and exterior concrete tilt-up wall panels. The exterior wall panels are only 7¼” thick and rise more than 55 feet from the footing to the top of the panels while supporting two elevated floors and the roof. To reduce the effects of the noise and vibration from the large mechanical units, composite concrete and steel roof slabs were integrated into the joist framed roofs underneath the units.

One of the more unique structural challenges included dealing with the poor soils on the site. The site is adjacent to the marsh of the Intracoastal Waterway and the geotechnical investigation concluded that the insitu soils would not be adequate to support the proposed three story building. The soils were strengthened using rammed aggregate piers under the load bearing elements to densify the soils and allow the use of conventional shallow foundations.