Lasting impression

Concrete hotel tops out next to Shreveport, La., convention center

By Angelle Bergeron

Walton Construction Co. is hoping to make a lasting impression on the City of Shreveport, La., with the construction of the $34.3 million Convention Center Hotel. The Kansas City, Mo.-based contractor has a reputation for hotel building, but this marks the first for the company's Shreveport division.

Shreveport is likely to need more hotel rooms in the near future, considering the January opening of the 350,000-sq.-ft. Shreveport Convention Center. The Convention Center is the second largest in the state and the largest in what is referred to as the Ark-La-Tex tri-state area.

"Our relationship with the city is very important," said Tommy Clark, Walton's director of business development. "We are doing everything we can to let the mayor cut the ribbon before he goes out of office."

Walton began construction of the 12-story, 314 room hotel in August. Poured-in-place, post-tensioned concrete and a precast concrete skin comprise the 224, 747-sq.-ft. structure. The project will be complete by the end of December.

In spite of numerous delays on the front end of the schedule, the contractor is still planning a soft opening of 150 rooms by mid-November, Clark said.

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The first delay came when the contractor started to drive pilings for the project.

"It was a cleared site and the owner thought everything was out of the ground when we started construction, but that wasn't the case," said Tony Brown, Walton superintendent. "We hit foundations, old pipes, wire, anything you could think of we found."

The original demolition and excavation contractor had to be brought back in to reclear the site, which was formerly a railroad station.

"They took out foundations, tree stumps, railroad ties and tracks, all kinds of stuff out of the ground," Brown said. Walton was certified to move forward when the contractor ran into another obstacle.

"There was a main sewer pipe right in the middle of the site that wasn't supposed to be there," Brown said. "If we had started driving, we would have been in some deep you know what."

Next, it was evident some design changes would be required when Walton realized the contractor for the Convention Center extended the pier caps for the adjacent building's foundation 2.5 ft. into the hotel's right-of-way.

"That made us have to use one-sided forms instead of conventional forms and form our caps adjacent to their caps by drilling into them and adding epoxy," Brown said. However, that design change worked in the hotel's favor because the contractor placed 18 in. of concrete in the transition area, instead of the originally specified 13 in.

"The hotel is only 15 ft. from the Convention Center on the west face and 8 ft. on the south face," Brown said. "It makes it very difficult working that close, and there is no lay-down area. We're building road to road and building to building."

To speed up the schedule, the contractor is using two-day break concrete, which allows workers to stress cables on the second day and keep the forms moving up, Brown said. "We do a floor every eight days," he added.

Dun-Par Engineered Form Co. provided table forming with scaffolding for the project, which "makes it much faster than conventional stick building," Brown said. Walton expects to top out July 1.

The two-day, high-early mix is rather basic, but the contractor is using a special mix design for the building's five elevator cores.

"It's a self-leveling, pea gravel mix that achieves 5,500 psi in two days and cures out around 8,500," Brown said.

The heavy-aggregate mix is necessary because the re-bar configuration in the walls of the elevator cores doesn't allow enough space for vibrators, said Richard Carter, quality control manager for Texas Industries Inc.

The Dallas-based company's northwest division in Shreveport is Walton's concrete supplier.

"This self-consolidating concrete is a relatively new mix in this area," Carter said. Although most concrete is tested by slump, this mix is tested by diameter, he added. "You measure the diameter of the material as it is poured out of the cone and we're trying to get a 26- to 28-in. diameter," Carter said.

The mix will achieve its compressive strength in two or three days instead of the 28-day requirement, he said. Additionally, because no vibrating is required, it decreases labor, which has been a huge consideration on this project.

"In Shreveport, it seems like you have problems getting labor because they are not geared up to doing big buildings," Brown said. "I think everything works here with the exception of finding qualified help to keep up the schedule. We had to bring a foreman and a couple good carpenters from Detroit."

In the wake of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, there was rampant speculation about material and labor costs, so Walton anticipated the problem and gathered what it would need to complete the job.

"We anticipated the problem and jumped ahead," Clark said.

To catch up the lost time, the contractor worked seven days a week, 20 hours a day through April. Although Walton has not been restricted to working certain hours, the contractor is "coordinating our efforts with Convention Center operators to eliminate any headaches it may cause on any of their events," Clark said.

By the beginning of May, Walton had revved up to three shifts, to accommodate CoreSlab of Oklahoma, which is manufacturing and erecting the exterior, precast skin.

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A live shot of the hotel jobsite