urbanMSP

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Thanks for doing the hard work for me

Transit station progress. Looks like operator rest space is near completion. Inner parking spaces are paved.


Southdale transit station by xeoth, on Flickr

The apartments being built by Stuarco on the SE corner are starting to make good progress. The decking is up to ground level now and they are pouring concrete for the stairwells at about 3 stories right now.

Looks like the rising concrete forms are for the six story building along York.

I thought that the 10 story was facing York? I saw two different stair wells up to about 2-3 stories out of the ground where that building is.

They have installed the stationary crane for this project now. Looks like the lower levels were precast on this one, wonder if they'll continue that for the rest of the project?

Too bad this apartment project doesn't have any sort of lighting on the top of it like the Covington in Bloomington does.

I thought that the 10 story was facing York? I saw two different stair wells up to about 2-3 stories out of the ground where that building is.

yup, you're completely right. My mistake!

Large photo of One Southdale Place: https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-9KEu ... E_0002.jpg

Neat. Glad they're continuing to do this and other redevelopments of these sprawling parking lots. Was there another property in play right now also? The former Wicke's furniture store location or something?

Why does concrete and steel pencil out in the suburbs, but not in the city of Minneapolis? Do these developments include underground parking, or is it surface lots around the building?

There was one or two levels of underground parking for residents of these Southdale apartments.

Also, the southdale bus station is operating.

Those are just the elevator shafts; the rest of the building might be wood?

For example, the Genevese project at Penn and American Blvd had these very tall elevator shafts, but I think it was completely stick besides that.

Nope. If it is over 6 stories, it is steel framing or post-tension concrete - not wood.

Nope. If it is over 6 stories, it is steel framing or post-tension concrete - not wood.

I know this to be true, and yet... Gpete is correct that there was something weird going on at the Genesee project. I wasn't able to get down there regularly enough to figure out what was actually going on, but it was an unusual project that seemed to break some of standard rules of thumb.

Not necessarily weird at all to have tall elevator shafts. Not sure what "tall" means...the total height of the building? Partial height? Typically shafts are used as "shear walls" to resist lateral forces in a building so the height of a shaft could be determined by that. They may have used the entire height of the building to leverage the shear strength of a reinforced concrete shaft. Once you get to a certain height with a reinforced, poured concrete shaft, it probably makes sense to just do the whole thing. There are also pressurization issues in vertical shafts associated with "tall" buildings which may have determined that the whole shaft be reinforced CIP concrete...Genesee doesn't seem tall enough to require pressurized shafts but maybe...

Weird to have cast-in-place concrete (or CMU) elevator cores that are built full height ahead of any other construction if you assume that the building is too tall to be stick framed. Residential is very rarely steel construction, so that leaves concrete construction. It could be all precast construction, but that's usually too bulky for residential.

Like I said, I wasn't able to snoop around the Genesee site too much, but it was (if memory serves) an 8 story project that had elevator shafts topped out ahead of the rest of construction.

Weird to have cast-in-place concrete (or CMU) elevator cores that are built full height ahead of any other construction if you assume that the building is too tall to be stick framed. Residential is very rarely steel construction, so that leaves concrete construction. It could be all precast construction, but that's usually too bulky for residential.

...8 story project that had elevator shafts topped out ahead of the rest of construction.

6 Story
Parking Levels (underground and grade level) = Concrete floors, beams and columns (precast is cheaper, post-tension is more expensive)
Level 1 (grade): Concrete (see above). Walls are "non-combustible" = steel studs
Level 2 (FLOOR ONLY): Concrete - this is the "transfer floor" for the loads from above. This will *almost always* be a continuous "plate" matching the footprint of the building below).
2-6: Stick frame

8-10 Story
Parking Levels (underground and grade level) = Concrete floors, beams and columns (precast is cheaper, post-tension is more expensive)
Level 1 (grade): Concrete (see above).
Level 2 (FLOOR ONLY): Concrete (see above) - this is the "transfer floor" for the loads from above. This will almost always be a continuous "plate" matching the footprint of the building below).
2 through 8-10: Steel Stud load bearing walls

If taller than 10 stories,this is where the economies start to come into play and when it makes sense to do post-tension concrete structure throughout (see Nic on Fifth, LPM, etc).

Yeah, it's the 8-10 story stuff that is exotic around here -- makes sense that it's steel studs. But that will make your thermal envelope more difficult because steel studs conduct heat like crazy -- it's starting to become a commercial type system.