Mead Hotel

Wisconsin Rapids, WI

Designers of the four-story addition to the Mead Hotel in Wisconsin Rapids, WI, faced a tight and unyielding deadline for completion. Due to commitments made to conference groups, the 89-room structure had to be completed in seven months. Several design options were considered, but it was a precast concrete structure supporting a façade made of face brick that was selected. That choice did not fit into the original budget, but it sliced more than two months off the construction schedule of a masonry structure and provided a variety of structural and aesthetic advantages, too.

The addition was designed to replace the hotel's original building, a two-story structure built in the early 1950s in the "motor hotel" format popular then. The owner, Consolidated Papers Inc., added a five-story tower section in the late 1970s, and now they wanted to replace the outdated original building with a modern version. "Our key goal was to duplicate the architecture and look of the 1970s building, which consisted of a steel-framed building with masonry walls," explains Dale Hagen, chief civil engineer and project manager for Consolidated Papers, the hotel's owner. "We decided to use a precast structure with hollowcore flooring and a masonry façade to provide us with the aesthetic match we desired, while also meeting our need for erection speed."

Design-Build Format Helps
Due to the tight schedule, the project was produced under a design-build format, with close cooperation among all of the construction team. Early on, designers had considered using masonry block as the backing structure, explains Dave Kievet, regional operations manager for Oscar J. Boldt Construction Co. in Appleton, WI, but concerns over scheduling and labor availability convinced them that it wouldn't get the job done and they focused on the precast concrete option. "The decision might have been closer if labor wasn't so tight," he says. "We didn't think there were enough masons available to get the building open in time."

By using a precast concrete structure, designers could enclose the shell quickly, which allowed interior finish work to begin sooner, notes Hagen. The precast structure was erected in four segments, allowing each to be completed and interior work to begin while erection crews moved to the next portion. With masonry, each floor would have had to go up story by story, delaying access to the interiors. "Precast allowed us to be enclosed very early, which let the masons begin laying the face brick earlier, too," he says. "We would not have been able to do it as quickly if we had used a conventional masonry structure with the precast flooring."

The precast option produced a more expensive component cost, but savings accrued in other areas that made up for it, notes Pete Kuehl, senior program architect for Boldt. "Because there are so many unknowns involved with masonry construction related to weather and other contingencies that have to be allowed, using precast allowed us to cut those out of the schedule and budget. Precast also saved the need for extensive scaffolding on the site, which would have hindered other trades and slowed progress."

In addition, the exterior precast wall system had dovetailed slots cast into its face to anchor the face brick. That made it an excellent support material, adds Kievet. "Precast is fantastic when you're laying face brick," he says. "It's much better than laying against block masonry with conventional anchors." It also makes a sturdier and faster support for anchoring scaffolding, he notes. "We used mobile scaffolding to place the brick, and we find the tie-off points to be more secure when we anchor them into precast concrete."

Spandrels Aid Window Design
Another key advantage came in redesigning a featured bay-window unit in each hotel room to include a precast concrete spandrel as support. "Originally we intended to use steel-stud construction covered with an exterior insulating finish system (EIFS)," explains Kuehl. "But we're a little leery of that design because of the energy codes and the loss of thermal protection through a steel system." Instead, the window system was redesigned as a precast spandrel with rigid insulation behind it. The concrete was colored and textured to resemble lime stone, matching the existing building's accents.

"This gave us a good thermal insulation value and a nice color match," he says. "It also let us complete the windows' rough opening while the precast erection was underway, rather than having to come back afterward with another trade to do the EIFS. This sped up the window installation, helping us get interior trades in even quicker. Spancrete did an excellent job designing these details."

The precast structure and hollowcore plank also aided in laying out the basement and first-floor levels. These spaces, as with many hotels, feature banquet and meeting rooms, where event planners want wide-open spaces. But they also must provide the structural support to accommodate many wall partitions on upper floors. "Rather than use wall members on the lower floors, we used a post-and-beam design to provide open spaces," says Kuehl. "The original plan called for masonry shear walls, and those would have had to go all the way to the foundation, which would have subdivided the basement level. The post-and-beam format and hollow-core planking made the options more flexible for laying out the spaces."

The guest floors were divided with 8-inch solid Spancrete precast planks. As with the precast structure, these provided both acoustical dampening and fire separation. This proved especially advantageous for providing the 3-hour fire rating required for separating the first-floor meeting rooms from the guest rooms directly above. This rating also was needed for the stair towers, says Kuehl. "The precast components helped us achieve these ratings very efficiently in these areas."

Site Restraints Posed Challenges
The site was tightly constrained, as the addition was built in a portion of the existing parking lot, allowing the original building to remain in operation until the new one was ready. Working around an operating hotel also posed challenges that had to be met.

The fast-track nature meant Spancrete had to begin casting components before any working documents existed. "Our shop drawings and the engineering design took place simultaneously," says Doug Anderson, Spancrete sales representative. "They gave us the perimeter dimensions, and we filled everything from the foundations up from that. It took a lot of communication to keep things working smoothly."

To help in this process, Spancrete brought in Front Range Design Inc. of Denver to coordinate submittal and approval of drawings and documents. "Spancrete and Front Range did an excellent job on the detailing and drawings," agrees Kuehl. "They were casting structural components before the next sequence was into working drawings."

With casting underway, attention turned to how to make the site work best. Several factors were involved. Not only was the site restricted, but because the hotel was still in operation, the remaining parts of the parking lot were more in demand and busy every day. "It wasn't like an office building, with a set amount of parking set aside each day," Kievet points out. "Some days we had a lot of room, and other days we didn't — and we never knew which days were going to be which."

Just-In-Time Delivery
As a result, the team established a "just-in-time" delivery approach for precast components, carefully sequencing each delivery to be sure only the next few picks were on-site. Fortunately, Boldt had worked with Spancrete on several other Consolidated Papers projects and had developed special erection processes that kept things running smoothly. These included a tipping carriage that uses a two-part line with special rigging that allowed the precast components to be picked and set into place in one smooth motion.

Sequencing the erection also took close coordination. Due to the site restrictions, the erection was performed from inside the structure's foundation instead of working from the perimeter. The crane started work on one side and backed out the other side. As each section was finished and the erectors moved onto the next segment, crews moved in to do the final welding and grouting so interior work could begin. Since the basement sat 12 feet below grade, the crane had to move up a ramp and out, after which the ramp was excavated, the final foundation wall was poured and the final building wall was erected.

All of this work continued while the hotel remained in operation. "Our goal was to minimize the guests' exposure to the construction," explains Daniel Dick, general manager at the hotel. "The construction team maintained a high level of sensitivity to those needs throughout the project." This included starting later in the morning and even working some Saturdays. In addition, the hotel made sure to book the rooms facing the construction activity only when necessary.

The result of this close cooperation was a project that met all the goals. "This project was challenging, because we had so many different sets of needs," explains Kievet. "We had the general manager's needs, which were to keep guests happy and operations running smoothly. We had the owner's needs, which were keyed to the budget and time schedule. And we had the project's own needs, which were to produce the building in a quality fashion with materials that would be durable and attractive."

Despite the obstacles, the project moved smoothly and met all its deadlines. The precast erection took only 54 working days, with finish work continuing after that. Groundbreaking took place on April 6 and the finished building was ready for occupancy on November 26. "We were obviously very anxious to occupy the building," says Dick. "It made us much more competitive in the market and helped us meet our commitment to incoming convention groups."

Overall, the team estimates that using Spancrete precast concrete rather than masonry saved about two months. "The key was using the precast to enclose the building quickly," says Hagen. "If we had used conventional masonry construction, it would have taken longer to achieve that, and thus longer to have the building completed. We had targeted the end of 1998 for the work to be completed, and we met that goal easily. If we'd used masonry, we would have been working on it for a lot longer."