Project Overview
Froedtert Health and the Wisconsin Athletic Club partnered to create a state-of-the-art sports medicine and fitness facility for communities around Menomonee Falls, Wis.
The building had to combine needs for aquatic and other fitness needs for WAC, as well as sports-medicine and orthopedic services for Froedtert.
Precast Solution
The 90,000-square-foot facility was clad with 175 precast concrete insulated sandwich wall panels using several finishes to create an aesthetically pleasing appearance and reduce the scale of the building.
The WAC portion consists of 47,500 square feet of space on one floor devoted to an aquatic center with two indoor pools, a whirlpool, and an outdoor lap pool, along with a gym, training studio, three group exercise studios, fitness areas, and locker rooms. It also includes 5,000 square feet of restaurant space.
Froedtert’s section consists of 42,500 square feet of space on two floors offering a variety of sports-medicine and orthopedic facilities.
Precast was chosen for its speed of construction, according to Jeremy Olivotti, vice president of preconstruction for Mid-States Concrete Industries. “Precast could offer flexible space to adjust as needs change,” he says.
“The high-end finish and R-values were a couple benefits that also helped make precast the system of choice.” The panels feature 3 inches of EPS insulation sandwiched between an exterior 3-inch architectural wythe of concrete and an interior 3.5-inch structural wythe.
The panels feature an architectural finish using colored concrete with sandblasting and a water-wash finish. No challenges arose in casting or erecting the panels, he notes, as all issues were anticipated and worked out upfront in the preconstruction phase.
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