Democracy Center Plaza Repairs

SK&A provided repair and renovation services for this office complex project.  The complex has three unattached, matching buildings facing each other surrounding a central plaza with outlying parking lots and a parking garage below.  The plaza’s landscaping appears as an X-shaped courtyard between the buildings.  The northwest and southwest legs of the X (flanking Building #2) have large continuous planters with paver-topped walkways lining each side.  The other legs also have paver-topped areas as well as isolated planters. The plaza slab surrounding the buildings is a conventionally reinforced concrete slab, supported on concrete beams and columns.  The garage has concrete-encased steel columns located around the building perimeters.  An approximately 25’ wide asphalt driveway is located on three sides of the plaza and is designated as the service lane. 

The plaza renovation included the complete removal of the existing pavers, planters and waterproofing, the repair of structural elements below the old waterproofing, and the replacement of topping materials.  Work also included concrete steel column encasement repairs, removal and replacement of concrete ramps and topping slabs supported by CMU piers, and painting, priming, and fireproofing of steel beams.

In addition, SK&A replaced existing soil beneath the pavers with crusher-run fill, performed architectural precast concrete repairs within planter pre-cast panels, removed and replaced planter CMU walls abutting buildings and planter precast coping stones in order to install rubberized asphalt waterproofing. New plaza expansion joints were installed, and existing concrete bollards replaced. Lastly we cleaned and flushed the existing drains and installed new planter drains to promote bi-level drainage as well as provided waterproofing protection and project management services.