PEACE LUTHERAN CHURCH FAMILY ACTIVITY CENTER ADDITION SIOUX FALLS, S.DAK. /// By DeBorah r. huso The largest Lutheran church in Sioux Falls, S.Dak., Peace Lutheran Church, has provided a space for worship and community since the 1960s. But because of its growing congregation, the church needed a better gathering space to accommodate the inflow and outflow of members between two Sunday services as well as an activity space to house a gym, family activities, and musical re-hearsal space and classrooms. “We’ve helped out Peace Lutheran Church several times,” says Chase Kramer, director of design for Sioux Falls-based TSP Inc., the project’s architect and engineer. “The church wanted a mas-ter plan due to growth.” TSP won the master planning project in 2020, and out of that plan, the family activity center addition, completed in 2024, became the top priority. “The family activity center was where we really looked at dif-ferent [construction] options—stick-built, steel, and precast concrete,” Kramer says. One of the church’s building committee members, Joe Bunkers, president of Sioux Falls precast concrete producer Gage Brothers, planted the idea of a precast concrete structure. In the end, the committee decided to use precast con-crete for the gym portion of the family activity center addition and steel frame for the future music center. For the gym, precast concrete provides both structure and façade, consisting of precast concrete wall panels and double tees. The key reason the team chose precast concrete was for its constructability and to accommodate an accelerated building schedule. “We know precast concrete works well for gym spac-es,” says Kramer. “It makes for efficient construction and quick delivery. You get it to the site, and it goes up really fast.” “Precast concrete is almost always the structure of choice in this area,” adds Bunkers. “It offers really good insulation, goes up quickly, and is extremely durable inside and outside.” Precast concrete insulated structural panels with architectur-al finish make up the activity center’s walls. “They’re doing the brunt work of bearing double tees,” says Kramer. “There are no beams supporting the system.” Precast concrete hollow-core slabs supported by a steel structure make up the space between the existing church structure and the new two-story family ac-tivity center. The precast concrete wall panels run all the way from the foundation to the roof. The largest wall panels are 40 ft tall with a width of 12 ft, weighing in at over 50,000 lb. The canopy roof of the activity center consists of metal panels supported by precast concrete double tees that are exposed on the inside and run through the wall panels to create the archi-tectural feature of an overhang. The orange and dark gray sand-blasted finish matches the existing church with its brick facing and a heavy band of dark gray exterior insulation and finish sys-tem above. PROJECT SPOTLIGHT Location: Sioux Falls, S.Dak. Size: 13,300 ft 2 Cost: $8.4 million PEACE LUTHERAN CHURCH FAMILY ACTIVITY CENTER ADDITION Owner: Peace Lutheran Church, Sioux Falls, S.Dak. Architect and Structural Engineer: TSP Inc., Sioux Falls, S.Dak. Contractor: McGough Construction, Sioux Falls, S.Dak. PCI-Certified Precast Concrete Producer: Gage Brothers, Sioux Falls, S.Dak. PCI-Certified Precast Concrete Erector: Gil Haugan Construction, Sioux Falls, S.Dak. Precast Concrete Components: 89 pieces totaling 21,568 ft 2 , including 11 double tees, 41 hollow-core slabs, and 37 insulated wall panels The design team had originally wanted the orange color of the structure to be thin brick to match the church. This proved too costly, however, so they settled on an etched orange finish for the precast concrete instead, along with polished bands of gray between the windows to give the structure an aluminum framing appearance. The orange precast concrete also provides the archi-tectural feature of a recessed cross at the new church entrance. Clever Design Solutions Precast concrete construction did create a few complexities, however. The master plan TSP had designed called for ribbon win-dows at the top of the gym structure. “Architects love continuous windows,” says Bunkers. “It’s a neat aesthetic, but it’s hard to pull off on a load bearing wall.” So, to maintain the look of ribbon windows, TSP alternated windows with precast concrete with a dark and shiny finish that would blend with the windows to create the illusion of glass coming together at the corners of the building. The design and building teams also had to coordinate to al-low for future additions on the north side of the activity center, including a new entry that would connect to a future fellowship
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