Granbury Church of Christ: A 25,000 Sq Ft Metal Church Building in Granbury, TX

A Custom Steeple, an I-Beam Structure, and a Budget Built on Offerings

Building Overview

The building had to carry a custom open steeple and a budget funded entirely by the people sitting in the pews. Neither had room to give.

Granbury Church of Christ is a 25,000 square foot pre-engineered metal church building in Granbury, Texas, serving a congregation that had outgrown its previous facility and needed a space large enough and flexible enough to support worship, education, administration, and community events in one building.

The I-Beam structural system delivered the open, column-free worship and assembly spaces the design called for, with a custom-engineered expansion joint built into the steeple framing and a facade that integrated EIFS, cultured stone, and mechanical features coordinated during design rather than during erection.

The Challenges

A Custom Steeple That Pushed Beyond Standard PEMB Framing

The open steeple was the architectural centerpiece of the design. It was also the biggest structural problem. Standard pre-engineered framing is not built for an open steeple geometry. Load distribution, thermal movement across a tall vertical element, and the connection back to the main roof plane all require engineering that goes past the catalog.

We designed a custom-engineered expansion joint into the steeple framing so the structure could flex with temperature changes and wind loads without cracking the finish materials around it. The steeple stayed open. The structure stayed sound.

A Budget Built Dollar by Dollar

Every dollar in the budget was given by someone who attended a service, volunteered in a ministry, or made a one-time gift to the building fund. That is not the same kind of budget a commercial developer carries.

A commercial budget can absorb a small overrun. A congregation-funded budget cannot, not without a committee meeting, a disclosure to the members, and a hard conversation about where the extra dollars came from. We built our approach around that reality. Every spec was priced before it was committed. Value engineering options were laid out with full visibility into what was being traded. Nothing was ordered on a hope that the number would hold.

Multi-Trade Coordination Across EIFS, Stone, and Steel

The facade combined EIFS and cultured stone applied by third-party contractors. The mechanical wells and parapets were integrated features that had to land precisely where the steel framing was engineered to carry them. Each trade had its own schedule, its own sequence, and its own tolerance for the handoff.

When multiple trades work on the same facade without a coordinated sequence, the result is rework. We built the sequence before the first trade mobilized.

Integration With an Existing Structure

The new building had to connect to an existing structure on the site, which meant matching elevations, coordinating exterior transitions, and sequencing construction so the existing facility stayed operational while the new one came up beside it. None of that was impossible. It just required planning that started well before the steel arrived.

The Solutions

Each of the challenges above had a default path that would have cost the project something. Take the steeple from open to enclosed to simplify framing. Trim the worship volume to pad the budget. Let the EIFS and stone trades figure out their own handoff with the steel crew on site. Hope the existing-building integration worked itself out during erection.

We did none of those things.

The custom expansion joint took additional engineering hours up front, but it preserved the steeple design the congregation had approved. Laying every value engineering option out before anything was ordered gave the building committee real visibility into what their dollars were buying, and real authority over the tradeoffs. Sequencing the facade trades before mobilization meant the EIFS, stone, and mechanical work landed in the right order. Planning the existing-building connection during design meant no surprise discoveries during framing.

The extra effort at the front end is what kept the project from absorbing unplanned cost at the back end. That is the math on church work. Early investment in planning buys down risk to the budget later, when the congregation is watching the most closely.

The Result

Granbury Church of Christ opened on schedule. The final cost landed inside the budget the congregation had set. The open steeple stands where it was drawn. The worship space holds the congregation without a column breaking a sightline. The facade integrates multiple trades and multiple materials into a single building that reads as one cohesive design.

More importantly: the congregation got the building the congregation paid for. That is the standard on any church project worth doing.