Historic Church Finds Sanctuary

San Marcos' New Lofts Project Will Provide Shelter, Retail for City and Students

By Rob Patterson

A rendering shows the completed mixed-use development on a 3-acre site near Texas State University in San Marcos. (Rendering by Digital Simulations Inc.)

The $26 million Sanctuary Lofts project in San Marcos preserves the city's nearly 80-year-old First Baptist Church while introducing new urbanism to the Central Texas college town.

The Lofts will consist of 204 new apartment units, including 42 located in the 38,000-sq.-ft. converted church building. The project is located on a 3-acre siteone block from the growing Texas State University campus.

In addition to rebuilding the church interior, Tellepsen Builders LP of Houston is constructing two new wood-frame on-slab structures - one 140,000 sq. ft. and the other 69,000 sq. ft. - as well as a seven-story precast concrete parking garage. The city, the parish that formerly occupied the sanctuary and the developer wanted to preserve the church as a part of whatever would ultimately be developed on the site.

Ground was broken in June, and completion is slated for July 2006.

"I wanted to preserve the church building, because the more unique I can make this project, the more emotional appeal it has for someone who wants to live there," said Terry Mitchell, president of Momark Development LLC of Austin, which is developing the apartment complex in partnership with Tekoa Partners Ltd. of Austin. Both firms are majority owners of Sanctuary Lofts LP.

"It's a one-of-a-kind building," Mitchell added.

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The brick-clad, steel-roof church, built in 1927 with a concrete frame, needed virtually no structural work after the interior was gutted. "It's a very well built and sound old building," Tellepsen superintendent John Butts said.

All of the apartments within the church will be loft style, built of wood and drywall, and six of the units will feature the original stained-glass church windows. Tellepsen boarded up the windows to protect them during construction.

The church will also house a clubroom, rental offices and a small chapel that the developers decided to preserve.

Incorporating the church into the project wasn't easy. "In a typical project of this type, you'd have done the 'Texas doughnut,' by wrapping around the garage in the middle," Mitchell said. "But I've got a church building in the middle. In trying to make it work, I went through three or four massing studies until finally the architect said, 'If you can give me just 20 ft. more on the north side, I can make this great.'

"So we had to purchase the house next door that used to be the parsonage to make it work."

Erik Earnshaw, project manager for Beeler Guest Owens Architects of Dallas, said his firm looked at some historical buildings that were built around the San Marcos and New Braunfels area at the turn of the 19th Century and tried to "extrapolate from that into the project."

"We have some parapet walls on top of it and varying balcony designs," Earnshaw said. "We wanted it to fit into the nearby town square and the buildings around the area."

Firm senior partner Jerry Beeler designed the building and senior partner John Guest developed the master plan.

Brick on the first level links the new buildings to the church. Stucco and Hardi-Plank siding face the upper levels, and the roofs are composite shingle. The overall layout of the structures is notched to prevent presenting a monolithic façade that would dwarf the church.

"The existing brick and cast stone on the church are something we wanted >> the new buildings to tie back to with similar elements and complementary colors," Earnshaw said.

The adjacent house, gym and fellowship hall were demolished to make room for the new apartment structures. The larger building surrounds the church to form an interior courtyard with three swimming pools, and its three- or four-bedroom units are designed to appeal to younger students.

A series of six ground-floor, two-level, live-and-work units line the street at the south end of the site and 1,800 sq. ft. of retail space occupies one corner.

The smaller apartment structure with a passive interior courtyard at the north end of the site will contain one- or two-bedroom units for older or graduate students. The parking garage connects to both buildings and allows residents to park and enter the buildings on the same level where they reside.

Tellepsen has had to contend with a 35-ft. drop from one end of the site to the other. "We are getting our fill off the site," Butts said. "And we are reusing some of the base material that was underneath the old church parking lot as the subbase for our new driveway to the parking garage. That will help save some dollars.

"The biggest thing that we have to deal with on the tight site is coordinating all of our trades so that we have supplies running consistently and smoothly."

Tellepsen is currently seeking a location nearby for offsite materials storage.

The contractor and developer praised the city of San Marcos for a cooperative attitude, and Butts said it was "one of the best I have dealt with."

Mitchell added, "When I walked into the city offices and told them I wanted to do an urban project, they understood the vision we were trying to create."

While still in the planning stage, the Sanctuary Lofts won Development Project of the Year for 2005 from the Central Texas Planning Section of the American Planning Association.