Condo rising

Little Rock gets 17-story downtown high rise

By Mark Friedman

When the 17-story 300 Third Tower condominium building opens in downtown Little Rock in April, it will be the third such structure to open since 2002. And the city's condo craze doesn't seem to be slowing down.

Little Rock's Moses Tucker Real Estate Inc. helped develop the $29 million 300 Third Tower because of the demand for condos, said Moses Tucker Partner Jimmy Moses.

"We think (demand) is very strong based on our sales at 300 Third," Moses said. "We don't see much of it slowing down right now."

The 300,000-sq.-ft tower will house retail space on the first floor, a parking deck with room for about 180 vehicles on levels two through four and 98 condo units on floors five though 17.

advertisement

The number of condos may wind up being 95 units because a few owners are combining spaces, Moses said. The condos will range in price from $235,000 to about $1 million and range in size from 830 to 3,000 sq. ft.

When contractors East-Harding Inc. of Little Rock and Hensel Phelps Construction Co. of Greeley, Colo., broke ground in October, they had to deal with unexpected unsuitable soil beneath an existing three-story building that was razed, said Jay Herzing, project superintendent for the project.

"Under an existing building, you'd think it would have some kind of decent dirt," he said.

Anywhere from 2 to 10 ft. of dirt, which was about 5,000 cu. yds., had to be removed and replaced with 5,000 cu. yds. of clay, Herzing said.

The site became crowded with the removal of dirt and the drilling of cement piers going on concurrently, said Hensel Phelps project manager Charlie Barnard.

The piers went into the ground about 30 ft. deep and ranged in size from 24 to 96 in. diameter.

The site for the tower is less than an acre in size.

"Scheduling and delivery were very important," Barnard said. "All the rebar is fabricated off site and then it's tied on site. There's not much room for lay down space."

Each floor of the parking deck is 30,000 sq. ft., while the tower footprint is only 14,000 sq. ft.

The parking deck floors needed to be larger than the tower to handle the cars, said Rick Redden, president of AMR Architects Inc. of Little Rock, Ark.

"We put a top on the parking deck so you wouldn't be looking down on the cars," Redden said. "On the fifth floor, all of those units have a larger terrace."

On the west side of the building, the parking deck extends 75 ft., while on the east side it extends 45 ft.

Redden said there will be some landscaping on top of the parking deck.

On the ground, construction workers don't have access to the site from two directions because it borders a freeway onramp and a city street. The city of Little Rock closed the street in front of the project for a 252 ft. tall crane, which is used for all of the project's vertical hoisting, Herzing said.

"We've got the tower crane right off the street and that allows us to bring in deliveries under it," Barnard said.

Each cement floor of the tower is 8 in. thick and requires 4,000 psi concrete.

It took roughly 30 hours before the contractors reached 75 percent compaction on the cast-in-place concrete decks, Herzing said.

"At 75 percent, we were able to stress the decks and continue on," he said. "It's a typical site sequence."

In the center of the tower is the elevator shaft, which will hold three elevators.

The largest part of the exterior façade will be glass to give residents an unimpeded view of the city and the Arkansas River, Redden said.

At the base of the building will be stone.

"We wanted (the building) to be warm in appearance because sometimes concrete and glass can appear cold," Redding said.

The building also will be decorated with copper and zinc shingles.

The ground floor will hold the mechanical and electrical rooms along with storage and retail space.

Moses said a hair solon has signed a lease and other leases are pending for a grocery story and a bistro.

On the roof will be a 900-sq.-ft. lounge for the owners and a sun deck.