BioMed Realty Trust’s two new buildings on its Tarrytown, New York, campus will cover 297,000 square feet. To handle parking needs for the two facilities, a laboratory and office space, designers created a four-story total precast concrete parking structure that will be waiting for the buildings’ tenants when the facilities are ready for occupancy in 2015.
The 246,000-square-foot structure offers space for 823 cars and will include several sustainable-design features, including a solar array on the roof and charging stations on the first floor. A steel bridge will be constructed to connect the upper parking levels to the buildings once they are completed.
The total precast concrete structure includes 523 components, comprising double tees, girders, columns, shear walls, lite walls, spandrels, stairs, slabs, and wall panels. The wall panels feature a sandblast finish with pigment and white cement. The mix was designed to complement the architectural precast concrete panels on the façade of the two new buildings, which are nearby. Blakeslee Prestress fabricated the components for the parking structure, while Coreslab Structures (CONN) Inc. is casting the wall panels for the two buildings.
The four-bay structure’s double tees feature carbon-fiber grid reinforcing in their flanges, notes Peter Bertolini, project manager for Blakeslee. This technique is being used more often, as it provides an added level of durability and has become more competitive with conventional welded wire fabric.
The parking structure features multiple two-story vertical exterior shear walls that provide long-span, open interiors and provided a panelized look for the structure’s façade. The design breaks up the horizontal flow of the building and helps to reduce its visual scale. Erecting the two-story pieces created challenges for handling and setting,
The structure is on track to be completed in October 2014, well ahead of the buildings’ planned completion in June 2015. |