A precast solution

Garage doubles parking spaces at community college

By Sam Barnes

Design-build contractor Milton J. Womack Inc. had to find a solution fast when given only eight months to build a $9 million, 920-space parking garage at Baton Rouge Community College.

While the design-build approach would help the contractor more effectively manage the schedule, it wouldn't be enough to complete the garage by August.

"We began examining the project as both schedule driven and price driven and decided precast concrete was our best bet since pouring ready-mix and allowing for curing times would have created unacceptable delays," project manager Dale Phillips said.

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It appears to have been the right choice. The parking garage structure opened in time for the school's fall semester.

In early January, Milton Womack and architect Robert M. Coleman & Partners of Baton Rouge met with representatives of precast supplier Tindall Corp. of Biloxi, Miss., to outline the project's requirements.

"A week later, our in-house engineering and estimating staff presented preliminary proposal drawings and pricing," said Andrew Wise, Tindall vice president and general manager. "The architect did the design, sketches, elevations and designs and we engineered it and put the pieces together."

Tindall supplied 788 precast, prestressed concrete pieces for the five-level garage, all produced at its casting yard 140 mi. away.

Tindall's technical sales representative, Sam Briuglio, said precast was the obvious choice for such a fast-paced project.

"It offers a competitive price and extremely fast erection," he added. "We pre-produced it at our plant and it was ready to go when it arrived at the site. When you cast in place, there's a curing period, floor-to-floor."

Casting began in March "and by the end of April we were erecting." The last precast piece was placed in June.

A wide variety of precast members were cast, including 10-ft.-wide "double Ts" that support the garage flooring; 24-in.-sq. concrete columns; aesthetic arched spandrels for the garage exterior; stair and elevator tower walls; and ramp walls.

Special customized forms for the arched spandrels had to be ordered from Helser Industries of Portland, Ore.

"Once we gave Hesler the requirements, they had the forms here in less than four weeks," Wise said. "We placed them in our existing flat casting beds."

The spandrels not only create an attractive exterior for the parking garage but also support the deck double-Ts.

"It's not that common for a precast member to serve an aesthetic purpose while also maintaining structural integrity," Wise added.

During the casting operation, Tindall used high-early-strength, 6,000 psi concrete for most of the pieces. The high-early mix allowed Tindall to cycle its forms daily. All of the precast pieces were reinforced with prestressing tendons stressed at 30,000 lbs. per strand.

Womack's Phillips said that when construction began in January an existing asphalt parking lot was left in place to prevent inclement weather from muddying the jobsite and delaying the schedule.

"We trenched continuous spread footings and drove 55-ft.-long timber piles right through it," he added. "The precaster followed behind us."

Erection of the precast was subcontracted to Precast Erectors Inc. of Hurst, Texas.

"The precast pieces were erected as they came in each day," Phillips said. "Due to a lack of space, we could only accommodate about four trucks at a time. That forced them to keep things moving."

Ready-mix measuring 5 in. and 6 in. thick was placed on top of the double-Ts for the garage decks, performed as a "turnkey pump, place and finish job" by Quality Cement Finishers of Baton Rouge. The company also poured perimeter curbs and sidewalks with concrete supplied by Heck Industries of Baton Rouge.

Phillips said the exterior of the garage had some ornamental brickwork on the bottom half of the arched spandrels and the entire height of the stairwells.

"This was designed to match the existing buildings on campus," he added. "Also, all of the concrete surfaces were painted by Lancorp of Baton Rouge."

Other work at the site included the installation of electrical and plumbing, bronze railing and slate roofing on the three stair towers.

Phillips said managing multiple contractors and a 75-man crew was the greatest obstacle to meeting the stringent deadline.

"Lines of communication had to remain open, and everything had to be coordinated precisely," he added.

Useful Information:

For listings and descriptions of other precast parking garage structures recently completed across the country, go to:
http://www.pci.org/markets/markets.cfm?path=parking_decks&id=award_willow.cfm

For more information about design-build, go to:
http://www.dbia.org/