It’s new. It’s modern. And best of all, it’s precast. The National Precast Concrete Association’s staff has moved into its new headquarters about two miles north of its previous location in Indianapolis into a structure in Carmel, Ind., that showcases the beauty and functionality of precast concrete.
The building, completed in the spring of 2008, features a precast concrete exterior, stairwells and elevator shafts.
“When our lease ended and we knew we were moving, one of our first goals was to find a precast building,” said Ty Gable, NPCA president. “We’re fortunate to be in an area where precast office buildings are quite common.”
Timing and economics played major roles in the decision to move, and in fact the end of the lease on the old office could not have come at a better time. “We were fortunate that we were in the market for new space during a down economy,” said Gable.
“Therefore we were able to negotiate an excellent deal, not only with a reduced lease payment, but with 17 months of free rent plus moving and buildout expenses all included.” The result is an astute investment that will offer the NPCA staff a modern and flexible headquarters in a precast building with plenty of meeting space and room for future expansion – and all for less expenditure.
NPCA member company ATMI Indy LLC manufactured all the precast components of the building. The building’s design was based on a similar structure in Sacramento, Calif., although the Sacramento building was much smaller. The larger size of the new building plus the way the window reveals were designed made precast concrete the obvious choice, said John Jaffe, the Indianapolis-based senior project manager for Panattoni Construction Inc., the contractor for the project.
Panattoni, which has its headquarters in Sacramento, also built the original office building. “But their windows landed in vertical joints going through the building windows, and this building you’ll notice doesn’t have reveals between the windows – they go right in the middle,” said Jaffe.
The stairwells and elevator shafts, also manufactured by ATMI, were a time saver on the project. As the steel contractor installed the steel structure, the stair shafts and elevator shafts were dropped in at the same time. “He can have two crews working at once, and about the time the structure is finished, we already have access to all the floors,” said
Jaffe.
The shafts have more going for them than just clipping time off the schedule. “The shafts are pretty stout,” said Jaffe. In case of severe weather, office workers can find safe haven inside the stairwells. The shafts also allowed the contractor to meet the fire codes. “Those walls themselves give us the fire ratings we need for those core areas.”
Jaffe explained that most precast installers brace the panels from the inside of the building while erecting. With braces set inside a three-story building, there would be no room for a crane. So Panattoni asked ATMI to set the braces from the outside. The design team decided to attach the braces to the bottoms of where the windows would eventually go,
and on the outside, with no telltale signs. “If you look around the building, inside or out, you’ll never find any place where we had the braces attached. And we didn’t have to do any patch working after we were done,” he said.
NPCA’s new address is 1320 City Center Dr. Suite 200, Carmel, IN 46032. All phone and fax numbers remain the same. Visit NPCA’s website at www.precast.org.
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