Home Builder Developer - Interior Renovation and Design

An apartment building, with a ground-floor restaurant, will be built at the River 1 mixed-use development.(Photo: Rinka)

An apartment building planned for the River 1 mixed-use development in Milwaukee's Harbor District is to have a March construction start.

The 95-unit, four-story building will be built atop River 1's parking structure, said Blair Williams, of Wired Properties LLC.

The apartment building will be completed by around June 2021, said Williams, whose firm is serving as an adviser to River 1 developer Michels Corp.

It will include a sit-down restaurant on the ground floor.

River 1 overlooks the Kinnickinnic River west of South First Street and north of West Becher Street, atthe site of the former Horny Goat Hideaway tavern.

The Milwaukee office of Brownsville-based utilities and infrastructure contractor Michels willanchor thedevelopment's first phase:an eight-story building, with around 130,000 square feet. That building will be completed insummer 2020.

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Meanwhile, plans for a hotel at River 1 will likely be announced within 60 days, Williams said.

Williams declined to provide details before the announcement. Conceptual plans call for a120-room hotel.

River 1 could eventually include one more 50,000-square-foot office building.

With those additional buildings, River 1 would total over $100 million.

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The Common Council and Mayor Tom Barrett in December approved a $7.1 million city financing package for River 1. Those funds will be paid through the development's new property tax revenue.

The financing packageincludes $3.4million topay for 70%of aRiverWalkand $2.5 million to make improvements to Becher Street. Additional costs include an environmental cleanup.

Tom Daykin can be emailed at tdaykin@jrn.comand followed on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.

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Apartment building at River 1 development in Milwaukee's Harbor District has March construction start - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

UPDATE: Nov. 27, 2019: The worker who had been missing after the collapse was found dead on Tuesday night after an approximately 30-hour search. The name of the deceased has not been released, but Turner Construction confirmed to Construction Dive that he was employed by Gateway Concrete Forming.

"This is an extremely sorrowful time and our thoughts and prayers are with his family, friends and co-workers at this difficult time," a Nov. 27 Turner Construction statement read. "We want to thank the region's first responders, emergency service workers and Red Cross volunteers for their tireless and selfless efforts through this entire ordeal."

One person was still missing on Tuesday morning after a building under construction by Turner Construction Co. partially collapsed during a pour of temporary concrete formwork on the 7th floor on Monday afternoon in downtown Cincinnati, Ohio, the AP reported and Turner confirmed to Construction Dive.

The citys fire department reportedon its Twitter page that search and rescue efforts had been ongoing for more than 19 hours to account for the missing worker. Its unclear whether the missing person was an employee of Turner or a subcontractor.

Turner said in a statement regarding the Nov. 25 incident that four other workers had been treated and released from hospitals. A Nov. 25 AP clip of the event on a local news media's YouTube channel is below.

Despite this being the second high-profile building collapse in two months, following the partial collapse of the Hard Rock Hotel in New Orleans on Oct. 12, the collapse of buildings under construction is rare in the United States.

The cause of the Hard Rock Hotel collapse, which resulted in three deaths, with one of the deceaseds remains still unrecovered, is still unclear nearly two months later as investigations continue.

There are rumors, however, that the structural issues were apparent before the incident. Footage obtained by CBS News showed that workers were concerned about the safety of the structure prior to the accident.

Since then, at least 12 lawsuits have been filed in civil court against Citadel Builders and other parties involved in construction, such as the developer Kailas Cos., designer Harry Baker Smith Architects and electrical subcontractor All Star Electric. Many of the legal actions alleged negligent construction practices, though nothing of the sort has been proven yet.

Whatever the cause of the incident, crisis management in the aftermath is critical.

Thats especially true in a time when social media can facilitate the spread of false or misleading information. Several contractors and communications experted chimed in on this topic just this week, telling Construction Dive that one misleading tweet, for instance, can spread like wildfire and become almost impossible to manage, if the contractors and other parties involved dont have a strong crisis communication strategy in place before the accident occurs.

If it takes several hours for you to get back to the media or update your employees, in that vacuum of silence people are speculating and misinformation is leaking out, Anthony Huey, president of Columbus, Ohio-based consulting firm Reputation Management.

Though many details of the Cincinnati building under construction at 151 West Fourth St. remain unknown at the time of press, its clear that the building was being constructed at least to the height of 7 stories tall at the time of the incident. Documents online refer to coworking office space for lease at that address.

Cincinnati Fire Chief Roy Winston said, according to the Associated Press, that workers on the fifth floor were injured after concrete was poured on the sixth floor prior to the collapse. Turners statement said the incident occurred during a concrete pour on the seventh floor.

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Building in Cincinnati under construction by Turner partially collapses, killing worker - Construction Dive

Authorities search for a missing worker following a building collapse at a construction site on Tuesday in downtown Cincinnati. Turner Construction announced that four injured workers were released from the hospital late Monday night, but search and rescue crews worked through the night in search of one missing worker. (Kareem Elgazzar/The Cincinnati Enquirer via AP)

CINCINNATI (AP) A coroners office has identified the worker found dead after he had been missing more than a day in an Ohio building that partially collapsed.

The Hamilton County Coroners Office identified the worker as 58-year-old Preston Todd Delph, of Hebron, Kentucky. He was found dead Tuesday in the rubble at an unfinished downtown Cincinnati building.

Authorities and construction officials say Delph was checking for signs of structural stress and concrete seepage as concrete was poured on a temporary floor above him Monday.

At least four workers were treated and released from hospitals after the floor collapsed. The construction site isnt accessible to the public.

Construction officials say Delph was employed by Gateway Concrete Forming. A man answering the phone Wednesday at Gateway said they had no immediate comment.

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Coroner IDs man found dead in collapsed part of building - Daily Reporter

One of the business pioneers of the Seaport District appears ready to grow in a new corner of the burgeoning neighborhood.

Vertex Pharmaceuticals is poised to lease a building under construction in the Raymond L. Flynn Marine Industrial Park, the biotechnology company said this week. A lease has not been finalized, but Vertex and development firm Related Beal are in advanced talks for 256,000 square feet of space at Innovation Square, a lab and office project Related is building on Tide Street.

Vertex would use it as a research and manufacturing facility for genetic and cellular therapies, a key part of the companys push into treatments for diseases beyond cystic fibrosis, which has long been its main focus. Earlier this year, the drug maker bought Watertown-based Exonics, which is developing gene therapies for Duchenne muscular dystrophy, and Semma Therapeutics, which is working on medicines for type 1 diabetes. Vertex also is moving forward in clinical trials of gene editing treatments.

The question became how are we going to grow those programs if were running out of space at Fan Pier? said Vertex chief executive Dr. Jeffrey Leiden. The answer is a new building.

Vertex looked at sites in Cambridge, Waltham, Watertown, and elsewhere around the region, Leiden said, but settled on the Seaport, where it moved its headquarters and 1,100 employees from Kendall Square five years ago. The companys arrival kicked off a frenzy of office development in the neighborhood that continues today.

Other than Vertex, many of the larger businesses to initially move to the Seaport were law and accounting firms decamping from downtown, but the neighborhood is increasingly becoming a destination for life sciences firms. Alexion Pharmaceuticals and Ginkgo Bioworks have moved into new space, while Foundation Medicine said it plans to lease nearly all of a 16-story building under construction at Seaport Square. More life sciences-oriented projects are in the works, with developers even updating designs for General Electrics once-planned headquarters tower in adjacent Fort Point to better fit world-class biotech tenants.

At Innovation Square a two-phase, 375,000-square-foot project on the eastern edge of the Seaport Related Beal bet that it could build lab space, and the tenants would come.

The company signed Mass Innovation Labs now called SmartLabs and PureTech Health as tenants for the first phase, which opened earlier this year, then launched work on the second phase of the $260 million project without a tenant signed up.

The strategy is now paying off.

One reason Vertex wants to move to Innovation Square and lease the entire second phase in one fell swoop is because its further along than most other projects in the neighborhood, Leiden said, and on track to open in 2021.

Its permitting is done. Its already under construction. That saved us one to two years, he said. That one to two years was essential.

There were other factors as well. Its the right size, Leiden said, and one of a relatively few manufacturing facilities under development in the neighborhood.

Its also close to Vertexs enormous headquarters complex, just a mile up the street.

This is a team sport, what we do, and here the teams all together, he said. We love this area.

Leiden said he expects 300 to 400 people will work in the new building, on top of about 1,600 who already work at Vertexs Fan Pier headquarters. The employees will be a mix of new hires and people moving from Exonics and Semmas offices. He acknowledged that transportation in and out of the neighborhood has become a serious challenge since the company moved there, but said he was hopeful that the other big companies in the area will work together to find solutions.

Were thinking a lot about traffic, Leiden said. There are a lot of companies bringing more people here. We need a better plan.

Tim Logan can be reached at tim.logan@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter at @bytimlogan.

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Vertex is planning a major expansion in the Seaport - The Boston Globe

As he wrapped up construction of his Chicago tower in 2008, developer Donald Trump was confident the building's commercial space wouldn't be empty for long. Talks were underway with seven potential tenants, including some "very fine" restaurants, he said at the time.

More than 11 years later, Trump occupies the Oval Office, and almost all of the 62,000 square feet of space at the bottom of the 92-story skyscraper still sits vacant. Trump's company, the Trump Organization, is now on its third broker for the riverfront space, hiring Cushman & Wakefield last month to court tenants for it.

It's one of the toughest leasing assignments in downtown Chicago. Though the space in Trump International Hotel & Tower offers great views of the Chicago River, it's hard to get to, with no street frontage, and has physical limitations, like low ceilings, brokers say.

Adding to the challenge is the Trump brand, which is so polarizing that many businesses automatically rule out moving there. Last year, the space's previous broker, A-R-C Real Estate Group, even put out a brochure with a photo that omitted the massive "TRUMP" sign on the side of the building, raising questions about whether the broker considered the name a liability.

"It has a lot of negative energy surrounding it," says David Stone, founder and principal of Stone Real Estate, a Chicago-based retail brokerage.

Representatives of the Trump Organization didn't respond to requests for comment, and Cushman declines to comment.

Trump has handed operational control of the New York-based Trump Organization to his sons, but he hasn't divested his real estate holdings, including the commercial space and most of the 339-room Chicago hotel at 401 N. Wabash Ave.

How will the Trump Organization fill the space now? A Cushman brochure says it's "suitable for everything from hospitality, entertainment, office and medical." Stone and two other Chicago real estate experts discuss those ideas and some others here.

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What will it take to fill the space at Trump Tower? - Crain's Chicago Business

LAKEWOOD, Ohio One Lakewood developer is calling the former Trinity Lutheran Church on Detroit Avenue a labor of love.

I would say in the next couple of years youre going to see this entire property come back to life, Bryce Sylvester said.

After it was announced that the structure would be torn down and replaced with a fast food chain, longtime Lakewood residents stepped in to save the structure.

Theres Wendys and McDonalds everywhere. Theres one right across the street.

If the walls of the sanctuary there could talk, they would tell the story of nearly a centurys worth of faith and fellowship.

Its a huge part of the fabric of our city in Lakewood, Sylvester said.

Construction on the building was completed in 1922 and Trinity Lutheran Church held its final service there in 2018.

Frank Scalish owns a Lakewood construction business and said the structure was too good to pass up.

So driving past here a million times when it went up for sale, it sort of peaked my interests, Scalish said.

The city of Lakewood bought the property in late 2018 and has since been sorting through requests from business owners like Scalish, hoping to preserve the space.

Its a really exciting opportunity for our city, Sylvester said, Youve got a small business owner that is going to reinvest in a very important property.

Scalish plans to move his business operations into the former churchs sanctuary and use the buildings back office space for residential apartments.

While hes keeping his eye on the prize, Scalish said the building is a work in progress.

This is a labor of love, as you can understand, Scalish said, And theres a reason why it didnt sell in the first place. Its a lot of work.

Bryce Sylvester with the City of Lakewood Planning and Development office said because the building will now generate tax revenue, the community will benefit financially from the project.

Our schools benefit directly from that as they take a majority of the property taxes, Sylvester said, So in addition to getting a really high-quality project, were also going to be bringing economic impact to the city.

The City of Lakewood is still finalizing its development agreement with Scalish Construction. Renovations and construction on the project are expected to begin by next summer.

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Lakewood church preserved after nearly becoming a fast food drive-thru - News 5 Cleveland

MARSHALL Its been a long road to get to this point. But even with construction bids approved, it will still take over a year to renovate Marshalls 55-year-old Municipal Building.

Last week, Marshall City Administrator Sharon Hanson outlined some of the next steps in the process, from moving city offices to making major changes to the layout of the building. Hanson said city offices will be moving into temporary locations at Southwest Minnesota State University in about three weeks. Construction at city hall on Main Street will likely start this spring, after hazardous materials are removed from the building, she said. Completion of the renovations is anticipated in summer 2021.

The current city hall building was constructed in 1964. Over the past decade, the city has debated how to address problems ranging from the buildings failing boiler to leaks and a lack of handicapped accessibility.

On Nov. 12, the Marshall City Council voted 5-2 to approve a $4.89 million base bid and five alternates from Brennan Companies, of Mankato. Including the base bid, alternates, non-construction related costs and contingency funds, the estimated construction cost would be about $6.139 million.

The city will issue bonds not to exceed $6.5 million for the project, to avoid dropping city reserves too low, Hanson said. Bond payments will be made with existing city revenue and revenue from the municipal liquor store, she said.

Other costs not included in the construction bid would include a $138,000 lease with SMSU for temporary offices at the university campus; and $67,000 to remove hazardous materials from the city hall building. They would also include items like landscaping, furnishings and equipment, and security controls, according to project architects Engan Associates.

Hanson said some costs, like the cost of removing asbestos from the city hall building, are ones the city would have had to deal with no matter what.

The city relied on architects for advice on building new versus renovating, and when comparing possible city hall locations, Hanson said.

Hanson said city staff have already started sorting and cleaning out office materials in preparation for the move to either storage or temporary offices at SMSU. The moving work will mostly be done after Dec. 20, during the universitys winter break.

We dont want to be disruptive to the professors or students, she said. We are hoping our IT systems will be functional by the 30th, and have the city offices functional by Jan. 2, she said.

Removal of asbestos from the building will start on Jan. 13, and will last through Feb. 21, Hanson said. Construction is anticipated to start soon after. One of the first major steps in the renovations will be to remove and re-pour the concrete slab that makes up the buildings main floor, she said. The change will bring the main floor down to street level, and the construction will also bring the building out further toward the sidewalk. Currently, city halls main lobby can only be reached by stairs or a ramp out front.

Hanson said the way city offices are laid out will be changed in the renovations. Meeting chambers for the city council will be built where the old city police and fire garage used to be. The city offices the public visits most, like Community Services and the building department, will be moved down to the main floor. All the offices will also be about the same size, and none will have windows, Hanson said. Shared spaces like meeting rooms will have windows instead.

The planned renovations will also change the exterior look of the city hall building. Hanson said the design has features like keystones similar to Marshalls city hall building before 1964.

Questions about a lack of parking came up during council discussion of the renovations. While there werent currently plans to build more parking for city hall, Hanson said if there are options for additional parking, the city will pursue it.

The proposal to renovate the city hall building had received some questions and criticism, as well as support. At the Nov. 12 city council meeting where the construction bid was approved, council members Russ Labat and Glenn Bayerkohler voted against awarding the bid.

Labat said this week that his vote was based on a question he had about the renovations.

I wanted to know how much it would cost to build new, instead of renovating, he said. Unfortunately, I never did get an answer.

At the same time, Labat said he respected the process the decision went through. Evaluating whether to renovate the existing building or do something different wasnt easy, he said.

At the Nov. 12 meeting, Bayerkohler expressed concerns about the renovation proposal, and whether there were other possibilities that wouldnt carry a $6 million-plus cost to taxpayers. Bayerkohler said this week that, while he would be willing to meet with Marshall residents to explain the reasons for his no vote, he didnt think it would be appropriate to make a public statement after the council had made its decision on the project.

The proposal to renovate the city hall building had also received some mixed reactions from Marshall community members. In September, when the city council was considering a maximum of up to $8 million in bonding for the renovation project, James Carr told council members there needed to be a reality check on how the project would affect taxpayers. The council ended up voting to issue bonds not to exceed $6.5 million.

Al Greig, one of the Marshall community members who served on the building committee that recommended city hall be renovated, said part of the reason for that recommendation was to help maintain Marshalls downtown and avoid leaving a vacant building.

Its really important to sustain good business relationships downtown, Greig said. The current building, with its main floor above street level, would also be hard to convert into commercial space if the city left, he said.

Greig said initially, when it looked like the project could have a possible $8 million cost, I had reservations that was too much. However, the bids that actually came in were lower.

Scott Williams, another community member who served on the building committee, said he thought the planned renovations are more expensive than the committee had intended.

They took our guidance and blew it completely out of proportion, while remaining on Main Street, Williams said. Williams said the community needed to support Main Street, but he thought the city could have renovated the municipal building without demolishing and reconstructing a concrete floor.

Williams is president of Bisbee Plumbing and Heating, one of the subcontractors in a construction bid for city hall submitted by Bladholm Construction. Bladholms base bid was $5.375 million. The third bid for renovations, from Comstock Construction of Fergus Falls, came in at $5.258 million.

The Brennan Companies construction bid didnt name any local subcontractors. Marshall Public Works Director Glenn Olson said the prime contractors were required to list their main subcontractors, but that didnt prevent them from using other local contractors. Hanson said the city will also be working with local contractors and suppliers where it can. For example, she said, the city plans to use local moving and storage companies for the move to temporary offices, as well as local IT and security companies.

MARSHALL Marshall High School is investigating an incident of a student making comments about school violence, ...

MARSHALL With several inches of snow in the forecast tonight, and more possible later in the week, it looks ...

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City Hall today and in the future | News, Sports, Jobs - Marshall Independent

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Crews break ground on new $1.7 billion NGA site that will reshape North City - KMOV.com

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The second floor of the STA Plaza will become a temporary home for the downtown library.

During the past election, downtown Spokane's public library became a flashpoint. Nadine Woodward, who won a tight race to become mayor, pointed to drug use in the library bathrooms and a fight between a homeless man and a library security guard to argue that the library was unsafe. She even indicated that the library should consider banning homeless people until the drug problems were addressed. Woodward recently told KXLY she regretted making those comments.

But come February, the debate over homelessness and the library is about to change: The downtown library will be closed for two years for renovation, and a much smaller temporary library will be reopening at the STA Plaza. So what happens to the homeless people who use the downtown library for shelter when that shelter goes away?

At least some of the patrons, of course, could simply relocate to the temporary library at the Plaza.

"We're continuing to do our normal operations, which means any person who's cold can be at the STA Plaza," STA spokesman Brandon Rapez-Betty says. "If someone needs to come inside and be warm, it's a public building."

The entire second floor of the STA Plaza will be converted into the temporary library. That's 9,800 square feet, larger than the Hillyard Library. Yet, Rapez-Betty also notes that about half of that space is office space. Much of the rest of that space will be dedicated to art exhibits, a conference meeting room, self-service checkout kiosks, and collections of high-circulating books, DVDs and CDs.

On the one hand, there will be about 8-10 computer terminals, often spots that homeless people use to check their email, conduct research and update their social media accounts. But that's one-third of the number of computer spaces currently available at the downtown location. But these computers will be time-limited capped at 30 minutes per person.

Council President-elect Breean Beggs brings up another issue: What about people who have been banned from the STA Plaza, but not the library? Right now, according to Rapez-Betty, 146 people currently aren't allowed to set foot in the Plaza because of a violation of the law or of Plaza policies.

Where will they go to get warm? Beggs asks.

"It's on our radar," says city spokeswoman Kirstin Davis. "Our [Community Housing and Human Services] staff have already met with library staff and are also coordinating with homeless services providers to come up with alternatives when libraries are closing."

Andrew Chanse, executive director of the Spokane Public Library, says he's been in frequent conversations with the city about how to prepare those who rely on the downtown library for shelter for the transition.

"That's something we have talked about in the months leading up," Chanse says. "Can we get some outreach in this facility to really connect with people to make them aware of what their alternatives are going to be when this facility closes?"

But right now, it's not entirely clear to the library what those alternatives will be.

"I know there's been some controversy over what those options are the last couple of weeks with the city funding," Chanse says. "I think the city is still trying to land on their strategy for what to do for this season."

In the long term, Beggs says, there needs to be a daytime homeless shelter for men.

"If we did, I believe that will ease some of the problems that people report on both sides of the activists on this issue," he says.

City Councilwoman Kate Burke, one of the most ardent voices on the council about homelessness, worries that history will repeat itself. She thinks back to last year, when the closure of the House of Charity's 24/7 shelter resulted in the streets being flooded with homeless people, sparking community backlash.

"What happens is the businesses call in and say, 'Where did all the homeless people come from?'" Burke says. "You can't just expect people to go away. They still need a place to go."

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When the downtown library closes for construction, where will the homeless go to get warm? - Pacific Northwest Inlander

Congress SquareBostonBest Project and Project of the Year Finalist

Owner: Related BealLead Design Firm: ArrowstreetGeneral Contractor & Construction Manager: Consigli Construction Co.Civil Engineer: Nitsch Engineering Inc.Structural Engineer: McNamera / Salvia Inc.Geotechnical Engineering: Haley AldrichBracing & Shoring: Thornton TomasettiMEP Code: CosentiniHistoric Preservation: Tremont Preservation Services

Working with limited info from original drawings and having limited access for field verification were ongoing challenges for this complex project that transformed five interconnected historic buildings into a modern urban campus.

The project had unique challenges in an existing building, one judge said.

The more than 343,000-sq-ft structure, delivered on time and within budget in 32 months, comprised major renovations and additions to three of the five buildingsrepurposing them into one new commercial office building with a seven-story vertical glass addition constructed on top of what is now 33 Congress. Crews built the new superstructure on 14 steel transfer columns, which connect to the concrete core and 2,000 tons of structural steel framing around the core.

In building the addition, the team says it juggled partially dismantling three separate yet interconnected buildings with different geometries and grid lines while deciding which structure to preserve. The team shored the original building facades and structure from roof down to three levels below the street where crews installed mini-pile foundations to support the new central elevator core and seven-story addition.

They saved a piece of history, at least a facade, and kept the vibe of that entire historic area and built a new building inside it visually its a very nice project, said another judge.

After demolition began, the team discovered the carbon content of the existing buildings riveted steel was too high for accepting welded steel connection. The team conducted detailed laser scanning of all the existing steel to allow fabricators to engineer the new steel to properly attach to the existing steel using mechanical fastening instead of welding. By using a 3D model of a new steel connection onto the scan data for review by the engineer of record, the team was able to streamline field modifications by the steel contractor.

After demolition was completed at the core, the steel fabricator laser scanned all existing beams. For each connection of new steel to old, a custom-engineered bolted connection was necessary, the team says. Assuring the steel was fabricated to a custom fit required close collaboration with the design team.

Many unexpected conditions were revealed during structural dismantling and demolition, requiring the team to work together to find solutions. When the team found the steel layout and framing differed from what was found on the historic drawings, they had to continuously verify all historic structures that would remain and make adjustments to the field conditions. This required verifying all steel locations within each building and at the existing roof parapet to ensure steel would be properly located and accomplish the design intent. The team incorporated this info into 3D building information models.

To support the vertical addition, the team constructed a modern concrete core to consolidate the existing buildings many elevators. As separate buildings were connected, they threaded the core through an existing light well at the center of the building.

The team constructed a 1,700-sq-ft, seven-elevator core mat foundation and 14 perimeter pile caps in the basement to prepare for the addition. It also threaded 14 supercolumns down through the existing buildings to support the vertical addition. Crews were often left with only 8 ft to 12 ft of headroom from the drill rig, which required significant adaptations by the pile-driving team, the team says.

Making room for the concrete mat slab and core wall was also challenging. The team says an 80-ft by 80-ft opening was cleared from the top of the building down to the basement, which required 800 truckloads of material to be hauled out.

To preserve historic features of the original building, the team restored existing brass grillwork in the lobby, repaired and restored existing patinated copper cornice at the top of the existing building and installed new copper flashing and a patina green thermoplastic polyolefin (TPO) membrane to upgrade the parapet construction to todays weatherproofing standards while preserving the cornices historic character.

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Best Renovation/Restoration & Project of the Year Finalist: Congress Square - Engineering News-Record