Author: Emily Martin

McCarthy Building Companies, Inc. has completed an innovative seismic renovation of the Robert A. Young Federal Building—one of downtown St. Louis’ largest office buildings—to improve the historic structure’s seismic performance.

The U.S. General Services Administration (GSA), which owns and manages the 20-story, 1-million-sq.-ft. building, undertook the $75 million design-build project to provide additional shelter-in-place opportunities and safe exits for the building’s 3,000 occupants in the event of an earthquake. Originally constructed in the early 1930s, the Art Deco brick and terracotta building faces potential seismic hazards because of its location within the New Madrid fault zone.

The project represented the first use of seismic dampers in a St. Louis building retrofit and the GSA’s first time using this alternative approach compared to more traditional seismic renovation methods. This novel strategy eliminated the need for 90 percent of the concrete shear walls traditionally required, streamlining the project schedule.

The design-build team’s innovative solution combined viscous dampers, steel braces and steel sheer walls, enabling all work to be completed while the building was 100 percent occupied by employees from 48 separate government agencies. Additional project elements included seismic bracing of non-structural components such as ceilings; partitions; and mechanical, electrical, plumbing and fire protection systems.

“Our McCarthy team worked closely with the designers and trade partners to identify and implement the most flexible, efficient design alternatives and to ensure that all construction work was well-coordinated with office moves,” said McCarthy Vice President Ryan Molen.

To complete the project on time and with minimal disruption to government organizations and their employees, construction progressed 21 hours a day—from 6 a.m. to 3 a.m.—with much of the work completed from 6 p.m. to 3 a.m. McCarthy scheduled and managed customized moves for each tenant. These included either relocating entire offices or temporarily consolidating office work spaces into more compressed areas. After four to six weeks, employees returned to offices that looked exactly like the space they left—from the original location of electric outlets to the exact positioning of each desk.

During the project, water and electric service for tenants was never disrupted, and all work was completed with close attention to environmental considerations, including controlling negative air flow, avoiding potential contamination, noise reduction, odor management and other best practices.

In recognition of the team’s overall commitment to safety, the AGC of Missouri recognized McCarthy with a Construction Project Safety Award for completing the project without a recordable incident.

The McCarthy-led design-build team includes Gensler (lead designer and architect of record), Etegra (associate architect) and Thornton Tomasetti (structural engineer). Other project team members included William Tao & Associates, Integrated Facility Services, Aschinger Electric and Wilson’s Structural Steel.

As featured in the the St. Louis Post Dispatch:
CLAYTON — By 4 p.m. Wednesday, the new Mid-County Branch Library had seen 2,100 patrons come through its doors — more than double its typical number of daily visitors, with the post-work influx yet to arrive. Visitors were celebrating the opening of the 18th edition in the St. Louis County Library’s “Your Library Renewed” plan. Nearly two years after the Clayton library closed, they were ready. “We’ve been waiting for it to reopen. We are excited,” said Debby Thomas, who works as a nanny in Clayton. She was sitting on a round purple bench next to a train table, holding a stack of books picked out by 3-year-old Andrew Brown and his 6-year-old sister Allison.
“It’s bright and beautiful in this room. Everything is kid-friendly,” Thomas said.
The children’s area is a point of pride for Mid-County, said Kristen Sorth, St. Louis County Library director. The $8.5 million tear-down and rebuild got a boost from a $30,000 donation to the children’s library by the William T. Kemper Foundation.
“The old library was more adult-oriented than any other branch. There was lots of brown,” said Sorth.
The Mid-County Branch opened in 1977 at 7821 Maryland Avenue. It was — and is — the only county branch to have an underground parking garage, which also got a makeover.
“The old branch was the best it could be, but it just wasn’t accessible,” said Sorth. “It was time.”
The new 18,860-square-foot library is about 15% larger and was designed by Christner Architects to have better separation among books, magazines and DVD stacks, children’s and teen spaces, and collaborative and quiet work areas.
Natural light pours in from a skylight above the circulation desk as well as the floor-to-ceiling windows along Maryland and Central avenues.

Fuchsia and lime green walls announce the children’s area, which features oversize chairs for parent-child reading, round nooks built into the walls and pull-out bins that let little bookworms peruse their favorite titles more easily.
Two-year-old Emmett Florek paged through a “Pete the Cat” board book while singing “The Wheels on the Bus” as his 4-year-old brother, Noah, navigated among the other young browsers poking around the shelves.
“We didn’t used to come to the children’s section here because the layout wasn’t conducive to wrangling a toddler,” said their mother, Liz Florek. “Having a separate area is really nice.”

On the opposite side of the bustling children’s area, a quieter teen room had caught the attention of eighth-graders Alison Booth and Marina Lashmar. “It’s nice to have a space for us,” said Alison, 13. “It’s not for kids, it’s not for adults.”
The new library includes amenities similar to ones added in recent years to the library system’s previous renovations: quiet rooms, vending machines, a business center with copiers and scanners, a multipurpose room and a computer lab.
The $120 million tax initiative funding the renovations was passed by county voters in 2012. Next on the list is the replacement of St. Louis County Library Headquarters and the addition of a history and genealogy and administration building.
On Wednesday, a whiteboard next to the Mid-County circulation desk asked visitors to add a comment saying what they loved about the new branch.
The colorful notes praising the renovation had started to overlap one another, but one stuck out:
“It’s so bright, and open, and wonderful.”

As a part of IBEW Local 1’s building renovation, Aschinger, in partnership with Azimuth Energy, engineered and constructed a new 120 kW DC elevated photovoltaic array on IBEW’s parking lot. IBEW added 4 dual-port electric vehicle charging stations to the array as well. IBEW Local 1 received a rebate from Ameren Missouri for investing in green energy solutions at their facility. This produces an estimated 160,000 kWh annually, the equivalent of powering approximately 15 average sized homes for one year.

Aschinger Electric partnered with Ameren Missouri Lambert Community Solar Center on the construction of their new solar array, located at the St. Louis International Airport. Click here to watch a video showing the latest states of construction.