Press Clippings
Southwest Contractor
August 2002

Office By the Lake
Hayden Ferry Heralds New Development in Tempe
By: K. Robert Wendel

It is full steam ahead for the first project in the Hayden Ferry development in downtown Tempe, with developers eyeing other future projects, including a potential hotel and high-density residential, as the new office building comes on line, anchoring the 10-acre parcel.

Contractor McCarthy Building Companies recently turned over the new, eight-story Class A office space to owners Suncor Development. The upscale office tower commands sweeping views of both the downtown Tempe Town Lake and the Papago Park, as well as “A” Mountain.

Taking a page from the nearby Town Lake, architects chose to use nautical theming when designing and building the $35 million, 220,000-sq.-ft. project. That nautical theming is also carried throughout the building with high-end fixtures resembling, among other things, the keel of a sailboat.

“This is a very sophisticated design with a lot of intricacies,” said Oscar Hernandez, a principal and project manager for DFD Cornoyer Hedrick, which acted as project architect.

“The whole concept is that when you are on the west side looking east, it looks like the bow of a ship, while the north side is an homage to the lake."

The new Hayden Ferry project also features more than 19,000 sq. ft. of room for retail shops and restaurants, with a first-floor design that would allow potential restaurants the option of outdoor dining next to the lake. In keeping with the water-based theme, a blue ribbon of concrete simulates a river, tying not only the building but also the entire project site with the water. Progressive Concrete used approximately 500 cu. yds of concrete to create the illusion, which features five different finishes tied together, along with exposed aggregate finishes and sand blasted concrete.

“It's a really wild architectural concrete project from the layout standpoint as well as the finish selection,” said Mike Riggs, president of Phoenix-based sub contractor Progressive Concrete. “It's a piece of hardscape art."

A rotunda-like structure acts as a punctuation point to the eight-story office building, with the rotunda featuring glass curtain walls 20-ft. high with an 18-ft. ‚ radius. Because the rotunda is round, the rolled roof was built in an elliptical fashion, with craftsmen from Sunrise Steel prefabricating the roof in the shop and then erecting it in the field. Detailed planning ensured the steel-framed structure and roof would fit on the site, with designers allowing for some flexibility.

“The curtain wall is fairly complex, and with the huge wind gusts coming off the lake, the structural steel on that building is fairly intricate in a couple of areas,” said Dennis Sehnal, assistant operations manager for Sunrise Steel. “We spent a lot of hours detailing that. We had an infinite amount of calculations that needed to be done, along with a lot of strategic planning, so everything did fit."

To accommodate the existing parking demands as well as future demands, contractors built a two-level, 655-space underground parking garage connected to the building with a below-grade connection between the parking and the office building. Another 86-space parking garage was built directly under the building, while surface parking adds an additional 36 stalls. Engineers also planned for a future, seven-story parking structure at the site.

“We won't have to modify the existing structure to add the additional parking,” said Gong Liu, project manager for McCarthy Companies. “The columns and foundation are engineered for future expansion."

Because of soil conditions, engineers chose to use caissons rather than spread footings, with Agra Foundations of Phoenix drilling 30-ft. below grade to reach the bedrock bearing strata. Crews from Buesing Corp. found a few surprises during the excavation, with old foundations causing excavators a few difficulties.

“Because it was an old site, through the excavation process we found several things such as buried concrete structures that kind of gave us some difficulty,” said Richard Candelaria, vice president and project manager at Phoenix-based Buesing.” But the sandy soil and gravel is as good as you are going to get and it really makes for a perfect building pad.” Although contractors excavated thousands of yards for the underground basements, some 40,000 cu. yds. of off site fill still had to be imported to the site.

Because of the building's football-like shape, engineers employed transfer beams in the garage underneath the building.

“One of the bigger challenges was the boat shape of the building,” said Hernandez. “The columns had to go from the top all the way to the basement, so there are some transfer beams down there so we have a continuous column.”

In addition to the new Hayden Ferry Office building, plans are calling for possibly two other buildings, most likely for office uses, along with a proposed 200,000-sq.-ft. condominium project. A hotel project has also been proposed for the lakeside development.

“I think the architecture will serve this area very well,” said Neil Ruggiero, business development manager for Phoenix-based Rosedin Electric. “Overall, it is really a good looking building.”

Posted with permission of Southwest Contractor .

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