Project Overview

Located in a northern suburb of Detroit, Mich., St. Mark Coptic Orthodox Church provides a sacred gathering place for more than 600 families. To complete a 34,556 ft² addition for the church, precast concrete producer Fabcon, architect Design Team Plus, Consulting Engineers Group, and the owners collaborated on a design that used precast concrete for load-bearing walls, solid slabs, double tees, hollow-core planks, and stair units.

A Sole-Source Solution

The project team wrestled with a handful of challenges in completing the work at St. Mark Coptic Orthodox Church. The congregation had a limited budget, but they wanted a particular type of facade and the addition needed to blend seamlessly with the original structure, which featured Coptic architecture featuring intricate arches and inlays. Further complicating matters was the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, which resulted in supply chain issues and limited communication between the project team and the congregation regarding the church’s design.

Precast concrete was chosen to alleviate the logistical and budgetary issues while also allowing the addition to maintain the same architectural features as the original structure. To help make the new design possible, the project team used building information modeling (BIM) for both erection drawings and piece ticketing. This approach helped the team efficiently coordinate fabrication of the precast concrete components, virtually eliminating any on-site issues relating to fit, missed connections, or conflicting details.

Precast concrete was used to frame the main level over the basement and two levels of classrooms. The new gym features a clean-span precast double tee that provides the church with a shallower, more resilient structural system than conventional construction methods could provide. And, as the precast concrete walls were installed as a finished product, electrical items were cast into the units during production, eliminating the need to penetrate walls on site for electrical installation of outlets, lights, and switches.

As a sole-source system from concept through design and construction, precast concrete offered numerous advantages to the St. Mark Coptic Orthodox Church addition: It met the congregation’s aesthetic goals by providing an intricate brick-like exterior; it saved time and money by eliminating the need for multiple trades; and it produced a facility that the congregation can count on to stand the test of time.

Mason Nichols is a Grand Rapids, Mich.-based writer and editor who has covered the precast concrete industry since 2013.

Owner:

St. Mark Coptic Orthodox Church, Troy, Mich.

PCI-Certified Precast Concrete Producer and PCI-Certified Erector:

Fabcon, Grandville, Mich.

Precast Concrete Specialty Engineer:

The Consulting Engineers Group – Illinois, Mt. Prospect, Ill.

Architect:

DesignTeam Plus Inc., Birmingham, Mich.

Engineer of Record:

IMEG, Farmington Hills, Mich.

General Contractor:

CivilPro LLC, Troy, Mich.

PCI Associate Supplier:

US Formliner, Athens, Ga.

PCI Service Associate:

PTAC Engineering/Edge Software, Pensacola, Fla.

Project Cost:

Confidential ($1.7 million for the precast concrete)

Project Size:

34,556 ft²

Key Project Attributes

• A nearly 35,000 ft² addition to St. Mark Coptic Orthodox Church in Troy, Mich., provides more facility space for the congregation while remaining architecturally consistent with the original structure.
• The use of precast concrete helped the project team overcome numerous hurdles, including scheduling and supply chain issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic, unusual design requirements to match the existing church’s Coptic architecture, and more.

Project/Precast Scope

• The use of building information modeling virtually eliminated jobsite issues relating to fit, missed connections, or conflicting details.
• The sole-source design features precast concrete load-bearing walls, solid slabs, double tees, hollow-core planks, and stair units.
• Erection of the precast concrete components was completed in less than a month between October and November 2022.