There are so many important decisions to make when embarking on a construction project. What’s the required timeline for finishing the project? Does the size and configuration of the site suggest limitations? How can the value of the site be maximized and still provide necessary access to construct the buildings? It’s easy to see how issues related to parking can be overlooked. It may seem like a secondary issue in the overall project scheme, but, while it’s definitely not the most interesting or sexy piece of the puzzle, ignoring the parking component and not integrating it into the total construction plan can be catastrophic.
Because land is at such a premium in the Northeast, more and more projects are incorporating structured parking into the plans. Evaluating and pre-planning the construction sequence of parking structures in the context of the total building project is important to design, cost, schedule and, ultimately, the overall results.
Sun Life Executive Park
This project involved the expansion of Sun Life Assurance Company of Canada’s United States headquarters in Wellesley. Included in the multiphase plan were the construction of a 3-story office building with 100 parking spaces under the building and a 3-story expansion of an existing 600-space parking facility. The entire campus itself required a complex reconfiguration and extensive site improvements to the existing on-grade parking.
The overall project logistics were even more complicated because Sun Life remained operational throughout construction. It was necessary that the construction did not interrupt daily business – the employees still needed access to the campus and park while the garage was being renovated and expanded and the site was reconfigured.
In this case, the success of the entire project depended on the careful planning of each section that needed to be worked on. The construction team developed a detailed sequencing plan during preconstruction that ensured limited disruption to the employees while following a strict time frame for completion.
The plan called for the renovation and addition to the parking garage as part of the first phase – allowing the employees to park in the exterior surface spaces and the parts of the garage that weren’t being worked on. Then, when the surface spaces were compromised for construction of the new 3-story office building, the expanded garage space provided the needed additional parking. If the new building had been built first, lost surface parking would have been coupled with lost garage parking, and employees would not have been able to park on-site during construction.
Stony Brook Parking Garage
This project was unique because it only dealt with the construction of a new parking garage situated among existing partially occupied buildings. There weren’t other buildings to coordinate construction with, but there were still challenges to consider in how to build the structure. In fact, the existence of other buildings already on the site presented limitations for the construction plan.
The garage was built in an office park in Waltham and the owner was eager to rent the remaining building space out to tenants; however, before he could do so, he had to provide more parking on-site. He needed a parking garage and he needed it quickly.
The original design plans for the garage were reviewed by the construction team and were immediately adjusted to make the demanding schedule more feasible. It was determined that a garage made of a combination of precast concrete and structural steel would be the best solution since it could be erected most quickly and economically. Modifications were also made to the foundation of the garage in order to put down the paving prior to building the superstructure – all in the interest of saving time and money. Also, the surrounding land was excavated so that both garage levels had an entrance and exit, eliminating the problem of losing parking spaces to internal ramps.
The most interesting aspect of this project was the erection process chosen for building the structure. Instead of waiting to complete the steel before placing the precast over it, the decision was made to erect the steel and the precast simultaneously. The structure was built bay by bay with pre-assembled steel column and bracing sections. This allowed other subsequent trades to start their work while the structure was still being completed, thus saving time.
While the construction of a parking garage is not the most exciting phase of a project, and may even be seen as an afterthought, considering it as an integral piece of constructing an overall project is essential for a successful outcome. If you don’t consider it early on, what might seem easy could become quite complicated.
