Watergate EIG Tenant Fit-Out

The Watergate EIG Tenant Fit-Out project involved fitting out levels 11 and 12 of the Watergate office building located at 600 New Hampshire Avenue, NW for EIG Global Energy Partners. Structurally, SK&A was specifically tasked with creating three new openings in the existing 12th floor post-tensioned slab as well as designing two new inter-connecting stairs.

The stairs were called the “Patricia” and “Ricardo” internally by the design team, named after the Nixon couple associated with the infamous Watergate scandal. The Patricia is a single center stringer stair that is wider at the bottom and top than it is in the middle and finished with terrazzo treads. The Ricardo was the more unique and challenging of the two stairs, using a ½” curved steel plate for the stringer on each side.  Architecturally, the team had very specific aesthetic expressions for each staircase, as can be seen by the specific naming of each, and SK&A met the challenge to ensure that the architectural vision was fully realized.