Overview

The UVA Fontaine Parking Garage serves the University of Virginia’s Fontaine Research Park, a medical and scientific research campus southwest of Grounds. Approved by the Board of Visitors in June 2022, the seven-level structure provides roughly 1,250 faculty and staff spaces and was among the first projects delivered under the Fontaine Master Plan. Sited west of 400 Ray C. Hunt Drive among the park’s red-brick academic and medical buildings, it anchors a landscaped pedestrian plaza with a University Transit Service stop on the entry road.

Precast Solution

Tindall supplied the complete precast package — structure and envelope. The structural system comprises prestressed double tees, columns, L-beams and inverted-T beams, shear walls, lite walls, flat slabs, and precast stairs and landings, carrying seven levels and an integrated speed ramp. The architectural envelope is built from thin brick-faced wall panels, thin brick-faced spandrels, architectural columns, and vertical and horizontal architectural pieces.

The University’s architectural identity is masonry — red brick with light stone trim, carried from the Academical Village through the medical and research buildings surrounding this site. A 1,250-space garage is the kind of building that typically breaks that line. Here the envelope holds it. Thin brick covers nearly the entire exterior, and buff pigmented concrete in a sandblast finish forms the framing that organizes it: vertical piers and horizontal bands divide the long elevations into a regular grid of punched openings, shift to horizontal banding at the ramp end, and carry through the stair and elevator towers so the composition holds at every corner. Thin brick embedded in the form is the standard method for brick-faced precast; at this scale it is what made full-façade masonry coverage buildable on a parking structure schedule.

Durability drove the connection detailing. Double-tee chord and vector connections were specified in stainless steel — the welded flange connections most exposed to chloride intrusion from deicing salts and standing moisture, and the detail most often implicated in long-term parking structure deterioration.

Owner

University of Virginia

PCI-Certified Precast Producer

Tindall Corporation

Architect of Record

RATIO

General Contractor

Breeden Construction

Engineer of Record

Walker Consultants

Key Project Attributes

• Single-source precast delivery — structural frame, architectural envelope, and stairs and landings all from one producer
• Masonry façade continues the University’s established architectural vocabulary onto a building type that usually departs from it
• Architectural precast framing in a contrasting finish organizes the brick field into piers, bands, and punched openings, giving the elevations depth and shadow at a distance
• Brick and framing carried through the stair and elevator towers, keeping the composition intact on every elevation
• Plant-embedded brick held coursing and joint alignment to plant tolerances and removed a multi-level field masonry operation from the schedule
• Stainless steel double-tee chord and vector connections provide corrosion resistance at the welded flange connections most exposed to deicing salt and moisture

Project/Precast Scope

• 7 Levels
• ~1,250 parking spaces
• 1,015 Total Precast Pieces
• 392,851 Total Precast SF
• Thin Brick; Buff Pigmented Concrete with Sandblast Finish