Fine/Performing Arts

With gratitude and goodwill to give back to local communities, SK&A participated in this pro bono project that transformed the Congress Heights neighborhood of Ward 8 in Southeast, Washington, DC into a unique farm and wellness center, which promotes healthy food, youth education, and community gatherings.  The site will also host local art features as well as theater and dance performances.  Nestled in a one-acre site, the Well at Oxon Run will offer seasonal crops, a pick-your-own flower garden, a farm stand, an orchard with chickens, a greenhouse, herb and pollinator gardens, and a large youth garden with an outdoor classroom. 

To accommodate the site’s various functions, more than a dozen outdoor structures such as a classroom, forest gate, Avery cage, ceremonial gate, and library were designed using materials such as steel, wood, aluminum, and concrete.  SK&A teamed with a woodcraft specialist and used mass timber and special wood connections to present a natural and environmentally friendly atmosphere in the design of the structures.  Customized steel connectors were created and detailed for aesthetics, strength, and corrosion control throughout the design process.  In addition, various steel structures with eccentric loading conditions were encountered and solutions were reached using curved glulam beams with cantilevered supports.   

A mixed-use development, the project entailed the restoration of the existing 1920s era Tivoli Theatre in Columbia Heights for use as retail space on the ground floor, office space, and a new, 250-seat, live theater on the second floor.  The project’s scope also featured a new post-tensioned concrete building adjacent to the Tivoli Theater, housing a full-sized Giant Food grocery store and an additional two-story, steel-framed retail and office building with parking, flanking the Tivoli’s northside.

Renovations of the Italian Renaissance Revival-styled theater included a building structure evaluation, preparation of drawings and repair documents, and the performance of quality assurance inspections.  The load-bearing brick masonry had been severely worn and deteriorated and the building structure was undergoing severe corrosion of embedded structural steel elements resulting from water intrusion through cracks in the brick masonry, an open skylight, and failed roofing membrane.  In several areas, the level of corrosion reached the point of complete disintegration of structural steel members.  The structural instability that resulted created a life safety hazard and threatened the structural integrity of the building.

Extensive analysis of the load-carrying capacity of various structural elements led to a successful repair design.  The theater was restored to structurally-sound condition without compromising the building’s historical integrity.

The Bethesda Theatre was an existing 1960s-era art deco-styled cinema with a prominent marquee.  A historic landmark, the cinema’s streetfront marquee and original ceiling were salvaged and incorporated into a renovated mixed-use project housing new theatres, an 11-story high-rise residential building with 204 units, and street-level retail space.

As part of the Bethesda Theatre mixed-use renovation project, SK&A provided structural engineering services for interior modifications and updates that included the extension of the stage, a new elevator and corresponding foundations and framing and supports for a raised seating platform in the main theatre house.