Bell Shoals Baptist Church
Brandon, Florida
Project Type: New Construction
Seat Count: 3,400
Opening: 2008
Architect: Schwab, Twitty & Hanser
AD Scope: Acoustics, Audio, Video, Lighting,
Room Design
When Bell Shoals outgrew their 1250-seat sanctuary, they decided to expand their campus with a new state-of-the-art worship center that, according to the pastor’s vision, had comfortable seating, advanced lighting and sound systems, broadcast capability with a spacious platform and choir and rehearsal space. The church places great importance on preaching using video and praise and worship with choir and orchestra. An aural and visual sense of community is key, serving to inspire high-energy and excitement, while connecting people in the congregation to each other and the worship leaders. Contemporary music concerts, large-scale productions and television broadcasts are also all a part of the life of Bell Shoals and their new facility helps to achieve their goal of reaching people for Jesus Christ.
The new worship center consists of a sloped floor and terraced seating, a 240-seat choir loft and space for a 60- peice orchestra. The lobby has a welcoming feel and is used to support community in the church and includes distributed audio and video systems. The backstage area was designed to support weekly services and seasonal productions, with an emphasis on the importance of people flow to allow seamless transitions on-stage and accommodations for production communications and video monitoring. With requirements for IMAG and Broadcast video, 96-track studio recording, and video production for sermon support, a production studio was required. There is also a multitrack recording system were in the choir rehearsal room.
