Now that the third and final phase of its master plan is complete, the St. Therese of Carmel Parish has a new center, multi-purpose hall, chapel and administrative offices.
As part of this third phase, Erickson-Hall Construction built a 24,192-square-foot parish center that was designed by David Pfeifer, principal at domusstudio architecture. Inside the center is a 7,200-square-foot hall, chapel and offices.
The center will act as a multi-purpose building for the Carmel Valley area church and school.
“The daily life of the church occurs in the Parish Center,” Pfeifer said. “This is where people will gather and interact every day for Mass, classes and numerous activities.”
The 14.4-acre St. Therese of Carmel campus is located in San Diego’s Carmel Valley community off state Route 56, just east of Interstate 5.
This facility contains high-end finishes that include copper dome roofs, wood panelized ceilings and walls, and Santa Barbara-finish stucco.
The parish center also has a commercial grade kitchen, a stage with theatrical lighting and controls, social hall that doubles as an indoor sports facility, breakout rooms and a basement that has elevator access for storage.
According to Pfeifer, the new single-story Parish Hall features an enormous main hall area that will hold as many as 800 people for church and school functions such as luncheons, dinners and receptions.
Four breakout rooms are also included, and can be closed off and used individually, or opened for maximum-capacity events.
“Our biggest goal with the design of the parish hall was to create an assembly space with as much flexibility as possible,” Pfeifer said. “One of the details of the design that works for both sports and entertaining is the flooring, which is a patterned carpet that accommodates both basketball-bouncing and high heels.”
The center also includes a storage and utility basement, accessible via stairs and an elevator with doors on opposing sides to allow access from the main hall area or from the parking lot.
The cost of this third phase was approximately $6 million, and it took about 16 months to complete.
The property already includes an 18,717-square-foot sanctuary and a kindergarten through eighth-grade parochial school.
Engineers on this project included Flores Lund, civil; Wiseman + Roh, structural; Merrick and Associates Inc., mechanical; and Kruse and Associates, electrical.
Subcontractors on this project were: Richardson Steel, D.A. Whitacre, CA Custom Woodworks, J Geyer Plumbing, Prime Electrical, South Bay Mechanical, Integrity Flooring, East County Tile, SG Plastering and John Pulliam Masonry.
The Erickson-Hall project team included Mike Hall Jim Fisher, Dan Adams, Steve Evanco, Nat Riddle, Janice McKechnie and Leah Stone.