Justice Center Parking Garage: 9/10/09
Custom-Perforated, Clear Anodized Aluminum Panels
Foreman Fabricators won the bid to create and install architectural panels for the downtown St. Louis Justice Center parking garage at the corner of Clark and Tucker. With its location highly visible to fans attending the baseball stadium and hockey arena, the City of St. Louis wanted to enhance the aesthetics of this parking garage, without breaking the budget. Foreman had initially won the project as the low bidder, and then was asked for options on how the costs could be reduced even further.
The project proved more complicated than may seem to the casual observer. The number of individual parts in the design meant logistical issues of organizing, labeling, delivery and installation had to be planned for. The concept was for an aluminum tube frame supporting clear anodized aluminum panels. The panels themselves were custom perforated with square holes, which required engineering on the size and the number of holes to ensure wind loads could be sustained. Numerous meetings were held to ensure that anchor locations were correctly placed on the precast building walls to match the design specification of the panels. But in the end, anchor locations were virtually all off, forcing Foreman to make field modifications and bracket extensions for most of the anchor points. The location meant that cranes couldn’t be set up on the street, so work had to be done from inside the garage, and panel parts had to be constantly moved out of the way of continuing construction while the panel rework was completed on site. The result of Foreman’s effort produced a unique and aesthetically pleasing garage exterior, all within budget constraints expressed by the city.
