WJE PROJECTS

180 North Jefferson Apartments

 
CLIENT
Lincoln Property Company
LOCATION
Chicago, IL

Facade Repair

WJE documented concrete distress conditions during a recurring facade inspection in 2018. Based on our findings, the owner elected to perform a comprehensive facade repair project over a two year period. The primary scope of repairs includes performing concrete crack and surface repairs, overcoating the concrete facades with a waterproofing coating, and applying a waterproofing membrane to the top surface of all uncoated balcony slabs.


BACKGROUND

The 180 North Jefferson Apartments building is a twenty-eight story, 282-foot-tall concrete framed structure constructed circa 2003. The facade of the residential tower primarily consists of window walls set into rectangular openings defined by exposed concrete floor slab edges and columns. The exposed concrete surfaces on the facades are coated with a waterproofing coating. There are concrete slab balconies at the residential floors that originally did not have a waterproofing coating on their top surfaces.

SOLUTION

WJE performed the following services to assist the client with the facade repair project:

  • Designed and prepared construction documents for the facade repairs
  • Bid the project to qualified contractors and summarized the bids for review and contract award by the owner
  • Provided construction period services during repairs, including field mockups, submittal and RFI review, site visit observations, payment application review, and project closeout

The facade repairs were performed from swing stages, and WJE performed construction observation of each drop at several milestones to document repairs and verify that the work was being performed in accordance with the details and specifications. WJE performed water testing and specified window sealant replacement at units with reported water leaks. WJE engineers also performed load testing of balcony railing posts with suspect anchor conditions to verify that they were capable of resisting the minimum factored design loads specified by the Chicago Building Code.