Seattle

badillodacyroic1505.blogspot.com
At 30 stories, it required the second-deepest excavation in the city’zs history to accommodate eight floors ofundergrouns parking. And Escala’s ample footprint on the site would no longefr be allowed under city regulations imposed afterd the project was approved thatencourag taller, thinner buildings. “Because of the zoning changeas that havetaken place, this buildinfg will not be built in Seattle ever said Eric Midby, the principal overseeintg the project. The Seattle developmenrt firm’s $370 million project is under construction on four city lots at the intersectiob of Fourth Avenue andVirginia Street.
The city’s decision to go with skinnier towerzs would not allowthe 18,000-square-foot floore that Escala now has. Those larger floors allow more units, so the cost of amenities such as a wine private social club and fitness facility can be moreeasily “If we had to do it we would have half as many residences sharing the cost of all these improvements,” Midbhy said. “The cost of all theses improvements would not be affordablefor people.” The Escalz development team includes structural engineers, of , also of Bellevue, of San Diego, and interiort design firm. Construction is being handle by Northwest, which has an officwe in Kirkland.
JE Dunn has more than 350 constructiom workers buildingthe project. Construction started in March 2007. It took a full year to completew the underground parking structure six months to reach the bottom nearlt 100 feet below the surface and another six monthss to bring the parking structure back up to the Michael Moore, senior project manager at JE Dunn said his firm removed about 100,000 cubic yards of dirt durinyg the excavation. That’s enough to fill abougt 12,000 dump trucks. Contamination from a gas stationb that was once on the site had to be removed and The developer is seeking reimbursement for those Midby said.
The unusually deep hole allowse parking for 478 The depth of the hole required the company to putin 100-foo t pilings and unusually large tiebacks to stabilize the sides of the The underground tiebacks extend 60 to 80 feet beneatjh the street to the Bed, Bath & Beyondc store to the east and to the “We were very lucky to get a tieback system,” Midbyh said. “It’s a very efficient shoringy system and facilitates fasterconstructiom times. If we had had to use braces it woule havetaken longer.” At the request of severap buyers, the garage will also include a charging station for electridc cars.
One of the challenges was managingmateriales costs, which were risinyg rapidly at the time, Midby said. The developer did choosse to use higher strengthb steel rebarthan typical, whicbh allowed Lexas to reduce the overall weighgt of the building. However, the strongef steel cost more ona per-pound basis so savings were relatively small. The higher strength stee also required a longer lead time for Midby said. Perhaps the most unusual feature of the structure is its use of sevebn elevators instead of a centralkelevator core. The elevatoras are positioned to provide most residents with their ownprivate vestibule.
The decisiom to split up the elevators reduced the amoung ofhallway space, providing more sellablwe space than more traditional desigbn would have afforded. Where the elevator core typically acts as a sheer wall to provideearthquaked resistance, Escala relies on ductile frames that absorn the seismic load, with more horizonta support beams running between the unitds to help reinforce the structure. “It is fairlg unique for the Northwest, although it is used in other partsd ofthe country,” said Doug Grassman, a senior vice president at JE Dunn.
One benefit of this type of structurak support is that vertical support columns can be set back from the perimetefr ofthe building, allowing better viewse from the residential “It’s a very compact design that is very finely Midby said. “When we made modification we really had to do a lot of work runninfg it through a computer model to make sure everythingwas fine. The resulg is a very high performance structure that is very Another side effect of abandoning the traditional elevator core design was that the elevatore required extra ductwork to handle the volumes of air displaced as the elevators movebetweejn floors.
To keep on schedule, each 18,000-square-foot floor had to be poured inone day.