Many locals can see the progress as they drive by, but many people subscribed to our newsletter and follow us all over Wisconsin as well from as far as Pittsburg, Colorado and Germany. Here is a mid-project update.
No this isn’t a photo of the finished building. It’s the construction trailer where our GC, Northcentral Construction offices on Southeast corner of the site.
Fences went up in March and the leveled the blacktop. The first snag that we hit was a finding an underground AT&T fiber optic cable that was on our property and needed to be carefully dug and set to the north so we didn’t cut/nick it.
After that this device was deployed. It is for creating “geopiers.” I’ve learned that geopiers are created by ramming this large “nail” into the ground until it measures the desired resistance. They then fill the void with gravel and compact it leaving an underground pillar of compact gravel with the desired PSI rating.
These geopiers are located all along the perimeter of the building (aka the foundation walls) as well a hug gridwork for supporting the slab. There was over 400 of these geopiers laid out to prevent the building from sliding into Lake Michigan.
One analogy I have used is it is like a bed of nails that the building rests on dispersing the load evenly.
Since this site was tested by the NDR and determined to contain unapproved soil, every hole that was dug the dirt was quarantined and hauled to an approved off-site location.
The foundation trenches and holes were dug and the first concrete foundations were starting to be poured in late May.
The masons were then allowed to build on the foundations. You can see the west stairwell, the middle elevator shaft and the east stairwell.
The underground electrical and plumbing was fitted and buried. Afterwards the slab was poured on the east side. Since the steel-erecting crane was going to be parked in the middle of the building, the rest of the slab will be poured after the steel is erected. You can see the stub outs and vent shafts thru the slab.
Then Wednesday Aug 16th came and so did the steel delivery. The crew of five (including the crane operator) didn’t waste time and a good portion of the building was up by Saturday.
We hope you enjoyed this update and photos. How exciting!
Prost!