The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints: Windermere, Florida

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints Temple, is a magnificent structure. Opened in 1994, the 70,000-square-foot temple sits on 13 acres. The structure is perhaps best known for its dazzling pure white exterior walls made of precast white concrete and marble chips. To keep the temple sparkling white, the facade must be cleaned on a quarterly basis. However, over the years, the lift that holds the pressure washer began to destroy the original walkway, which was made of concrete pavers and eventually they were destroyed by the lifts and a new stronger walkway had to be designed and installed to withstand the weight of the lift and washer.

When David Edwards, president of Edwards Concrete, went to take a look at the job, he bumped into John Walker, the project manager for LDS building jobs in the Southeast, and the two men began to talk about finding a better alternative to the pavers. John Walker and David Edwards brainstormed on some ideas and began pouring samples. It was decided the best solution would be a thick, solid slab of concrete.

The next challenge was to find a concrete mix that would complement the white exterior of the temple. The natural stone in Florida is limestone, Edwards says, so a mixture of Bomanite and crushed lime rock was developed, making concrete that was extremely white.

The concrete was laid 9 inches thick, strengthened with No. 5 rebar on 12-inch centers and cut into 4-foot squares. The concrete and reinforcement was designed to withstand the lift for the pressure washer, which Edwards says weighs 35,000 pounds. In all, 753 cubic yards of concrete were laid over 34 tons of steel. To match the facade of the temple, 2-inch diamond shapes were cut out of the concrete and replaced with marble chips of Bomanite Aggretex. Each 2-by-2 diamond had to be chipped out by hand using chipping hammers, then sealed with a solvent-based sealer. To ensure perfect-looking cuts, the tool Edwards Concrete used gave the cuts a concave edge, which added a shadow line. Some of these cuts were up to 240 linear feet long. All in all, the project required more than 10,000 linear feet of saw cutting. "There won't be any problems with the squares," David Edwards says. "There won't be a single uncontrollable crack."

Being able to have parts of the walkway ready for use as soon as possible was imperative to the overall project. After all, while the concrete work was taking place, the temple needed to remain open. So work on the entry area was given priority. And that led to what was perhaps the biggest challenge of the project, according to Edwards. " "We were on the project for only a short time, about a week, when on a Wednesday we were told there was going to be a wedding taking place that Saturday." The church leaders planned to put down a plywood walkway, but Edwards didn't want to see that happen. The wedding party expected to stroll along a beautiful walkway, not through a construction zone. So Edwards Concrete stepped up production, working every hour possible, and when the wedding ceremony took place, 5,500 square feet of walkway at the church entrance was finished, and, Edwards points out, the bride did not have to walk across a makeshift plywood sidewalk.

Nearly 3,700 labor hours were spent on the project, which was completed on April 11, 2008.