Project Overview
Roughly 80 miles north of Philadelphia, the city of Easton, Pa., is home to nearly 30,000 residents at the confluence of the Lehigh River and the Delaware Rivers. While Easton’s population has remained relatively consistent over the past few decades, the need for quality housing remains. This inspired Center City Investment Corp. to invest in The Marquis, a 400,000-ft2 mixed-use development featuring 7 floors, 264 apartments, first-floor retail space, and a green roof—all anchored by a 308-space parking structure that spans the development’s first two floors. To design and construct the structure, High Concrete Group teamed with architect Bernardon on an all–precast concrete solution that included double tees, girders, walls, thin-brick cladding, stairs, and landings.
The Invisible Parking Structure
Bringing Easton’s largest-ever residential project to life required a strategy capable of delivering speed, structural performance, and architectural cohesion. Precast concrete checked all the boxes for the two-story parking structure, which serves as the structural base for the five-story, steel-framed apartment complex located above. Team members at High Concrete Group became involved in the effort early in the construction documentation phase, developing shop drawings in the initial stages of the work to significantly accelerate the schedule and streamline the construction process. As the project team worked through these plans, one of their primary goals was to design the parking structure to aesthetically match the apartments’ façade. Thin-brick precast concrete wall cladding was selected for two of the elevations, helping the parking structure “disappear” into the building while simultaneously meeting the local architectural board’s expectations for masonry articulation and urban integration.
The parking structure at The Marquis is wrapped on two sides with commercial space, with the precast concrete walls providing critical three-hour fire-rated separation. One of the project team’s most complex challenges was connecting the parking structure, the three-hour fire-rated steel and metal deck podium, the five-story wood frame above the garage, and a dropped pool structure—all of which required precise alignment. Another challenge was the design of insulation strategies for the roof of the parking structure to meet varying thermal needs between conditioned residential areas and open-air courtyards. These challenges, combined with installing continuous insulation between the precast concrete and metal stud walls, necessitated a highly coordinated effort among High Concrete, Bernardon, and DCI Engineers.
Collectively, precast concrete delivered myriad advantages to the effort. Leveraging a variety of precast concrete products met the demands of a fast-paced construction schedule along with a complex, multisystem building design. Off-site fabrication enabled rapid on-site assembly, which was critical given the project’s size and urban setting. Additionally, precast concrete offered the fire-rated separation required for the project, all while providing structural integrity and an architectural appeal that helped the parking garage blend seamlessly with the apartment levels above. The result is an efficient and visually cohesive development that sets a new standard for large-scale residential construction in the region.
Mason Nichols is a Grand Rapids, Mich.-based writer and editor who has covered the precast concrete industry since 2013. |