The Park at South Market District
Tindall Corporation

Involved Companies

Background

This structure is a 5 supported level, 435-space, 168,835 SF precast multi-story parking garage located in the Warehouse District in New Orleans. The design is contemporary with a white concrete sandblast finish and 27,000 SF of retail on bottom floor. Precast was part of the original design.

The building lies within a $200M mixed-used, transit-oriented development in the heart of the New Orleans Warehouse District. Comprising four blocks, the development is one of the most ambitious in the city’s history and infuses the surrounding vicinity with a hub of nightlife and urban activity within a site that, until recently, was little more than surface parking. The challenge with this space was to infuse the architecture with elements that mitigate the underlying, otherwise mundane, parking structure while adapting to and recognizing the historic surroundings.

Featuring contemporary architecture that complements the historic surroundings while maximizing sustainable design, this space is equipped with electric car charging stations, car sharing capabilities and features ground floor retail space. The building hopes to restore the area’s prominence as a thriving corridor—one of the oldest in the city—with an excitement, energy and character that is uniquely New Orleans.

The context of this project is equally as important as its design. Located within a thriving new district of the city, this structure expertly blends in and adapts to an evolving hub of urban activity while also tastefully preserving the style of the surrounding area. As a contemporary building located in a historic district, this space was designed to adapt to the scale and properties of the Warehouse District, with particular emphasis on ground floor retail space and diverse amenities. This versatility creates an active environment where vehicle and pedestrian seamlessly converge within the urban context.

Whereas traditional parking garages take a stacked approach to precast concrete, the structure of the building integrates larger pre-manufactured modules to generate a light skin for the building’s facade. In addition to the eye-catching style, the project is responsive to building code requirements, including the 50% open-air ventilation for parking garages. At the main entrance, visitors experience a material change from the industrial precast concrete of the arcade and marquee to a softer, more natural hardwood screen. This marks an important shift from the “vehicular” to the “pedestrian” as patrons transition from the street to the various ground-level retail spaces. Embedded within the pattern of the building’s skin are horizontal structural members which nearly disappear into the overall pattern of horizontals that make up the building’s façade, based on a figure-ground relationship between solid and void.

Challenges

The Design Team brought the PCI Certified Precaster in early as part of the Team. Since this project had a strict budget and a unique exterior design having the Precaster's expertise and input early reduced Project's cost and time needed to complete the Project. The Precaster came up with a design that allowed the separate architectural fins on the exterior spandrels to be connected with framing behind the units that allowed the spandrel to be lifted as one unit saving time and money by using precast.

Innovations/accomplishments

The architect selected precast material for its durability but also the ease of constructability. The precast panels made the assembly of the building incredibly easy and the unique style creates a distinct identity for the building's exterior facade. By using precast the building was able to react to it's environment by having the beautifully cast pieces part of the scale breaking the building mass on the edges, the randomness of the spandrel patterns and crispness of the precast allowed the building to marry with the retail on the first floor resulting in a really beautiful product.

The ability to have the random spandrel pattern on the exterior facade made this design work aesthetically and provided an open air structure improving IEQ. Precast required fewer columns which increased open space, visibility and ease of navigation improving safety and security to occupants. The building is located in the Central Business District so the site was very tight but by using precast we were able to erect the structure from inside its own footprint minimizing site disturbance. The precast overhangs provide shade for the retail spaces below. By using precast we were able to have a much faster construction time compared to the Cast-In-Place method providing a cost-benefit. The precast was produced in a PCI Certified ISO 9001: 2008 Standard 7.2.2 Compliant Facility under stringent guidelines and procedures resulting in increased durability and reduced long-term life cycle costs. This is very important since this building is in a hurricane prone area so the increased strength of precast helped improve the buildings storms resistance as well as other factors such as blast, fire resistance and seismic. Maximizing sustainable design, this space is
equipped with electric car charging stations, car sharing capabilities and
features ground floor retail space.

Relevant Features:

• Improved thermal performance/reducing energy consumption

• Accelerated construction

• Increased open space of floor plate (e.g. reduce no. of columns, obstructions, etc.)

• Aesthetic versatility (helped meet project’s aesthetic requirements)

• Improved storm resistance

• Helped meet sustainability goals

• Improved fire resistance

• Improved safety and security to occupants

• Cost-Benefit

• Improved blast resistance

• Minimized construction site disturbance (e.g. tight site)

• Increased service life/durability

• Reduced long-term life-cycle costs

• Improved seismic resistance

• Contributed to improved IEQ (e.g. no mold, no VOCs, rapid enclosure…)

• Structural versatility (precast used as at least part of the structural system)