Concrete innovations

Prices stabilize as supply improves

By Candy McCampbell

After two years of scarcities and price spikes, supplies are adequate and prices have stabilized, but that’s not to say that prices are even with last year. The Producer Price Index for June showed a modest 4.5% gain in price over the year.

That compares with beefier price increases for the competition. Steel was up 10.6% for the year and asphalt was up 7.7%.

“Even though it’s increasing, it’s looking to be a better and better buy all the time,” says Hix Smith, owner of Smith’s Ready Mix in Nashville, Ark. “It’s cheaper relative to other building materials,” he says.

Concrete supplies have loosened because of a more stable world market for cement, the primary ingredient, says Craig Duos, former executive director of the Concrete and Aggregates Association of Louisiana.

China, eyed as the culprit behind earlier shortages because of its booming economy, now has plants online and is a net exporter, he says.

In addition, the transportation issue that had vessels tied up taking goods to China is now solved.

And domestic production capacity has expanded with more plants coming online, Duos says. The U.S. demand for concrete has shifted from housing, says Robert Varner, executive director of the Mississippi Concrete Industries Association.

Demand in Mississippi varies in different parts of the state, Varner says. The Jackson area and DeSoto County are feeling the residential slowdown, but reconstruction on the Gulf Coast and commercial construction continue.

The coastal work includes greater use of concrete wall systems in houses destroyed by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

“Overall, our business is steady,” Varner says.

Building owners looking at the lifetime cost of a structure will make concrete the hands-down winner, says John Sorrell, president of the Alabama Concrete Industries Association.

“You’ve got to look at the big picture,” he says. When you consider the life cycle of a building with a concrete frame, “that building is likely to survive for longer than the average person is going to live.”

Although cement-based products have been used since ancient times, the industry is still working on making concrete better by developing additives to make it set up more quickly or slowly, add strength or add color.

Still, the addition of fibers is slow to catch on, says Vincent Mazzola, president of Brooks & Mazzola Construction Co. Inc., a concrete contractor in Collierville, Tenn.

“We’re starting to see people specify fibers more commonly, but they’re not getting used that often” because of the higher price, he says.

Steel fibers are probably the most popular, replacing wire mesh or rebar in large floor slabs, he says.

Nationally, the residential construction slowdown will reduce cement consumption to 116.5 million metric tons this year, 4.4% below 2006 levels, according to Ed Sullivan, chief economist for the Portland Cement Association. He also predicts a drop in cement imports.

But the downturn will be brief. His forecast is for a 2.2% gain in consumption next year.

Here are a few prominent concrete projects currently under construction in the South Central region.

Paragon Casino Resort Hotel and Spa Addition, Marksville, La.

Cost:  $60.7 million
Owner: Tunica-Biloxi Tribe of Louisiana
Contractor: Joint venture of M.D. Descant Inc., Bunkie, La./Ratcliff Construction, Alexandria, La.
Architect: Thalden-Boyd Architects, St. Louis, Mo.
Start/Completion: May 2006/mid-July 2007

An eight-story hotel with an eight-story glass atrium is the centerpiece of the addition to this casino and hotel that will add a spa, indoor pool, three movie theaters and entertainment space.

The hotel is a cast-in-place concrete frame building with rebar and post-tension concrete, says Chuck Descant, project manager

The movie theaters are cast-in-place concrete, but the atrium exterior and pool area are framed in structural steel. The exterior finish is Dryvit.

The hotel addition has 180 rooms and 25 suites, giving the property more than 500 hotel rooms.

Ratcliff is building an entertainment center, ballrooms, buffet, kitchen, grand hall, laundry and offices at the resort under a separate $39.6 million contract.

Mitchell Cancer Institute, University of South Alabama, Mobile, Ala.

Cost: $46 million
Owner: University of South Alabama
Contractor: Robins & Morton Group, Birmingham
Architect: RMJM Hillier, Princeton, N.J.
Start/Completion: January 2006/May 2008

There are two types of structure in this 125,000-sq-ft, V-shaped building to support its use as a research center and clinic.

The research wing will have a concrete frame for vibrations and the clinic wing will have a steel frame for cost, says Randall “Buzz” Summerford Jr., senior project manager.

A three-story atrium will have two-story window walls where visitors can see researchers working.

The linear accelerator will be enclosed in leadite block, reducing wall thickness to 3 ft from the usual 6 ft.

The foundation is auger-cast piles with a two-way, self-supporting slab on grade. The exterior will be precast panels and curtain wall with impact-resistant glazing.

It will use 7,500 cu yds of concrete and 630 tons of structural steel.

St. Vincent’s Musculoskeletal Institute POB VI, Birmingham

Cost: $35 million
Owner:  Johnson Development
Contractor: Brasfield & Gorrie LLC, Birmingham
Architect: Earl Swensson Associates, Nashville
Start/Completion: Feb. 26, 2007/July 22, 2008

This six-story, 160,000-sq-ft building has a tight site and tight schedule, says John Renfroe, project manager.

It is 3 ft from the street, 12 ft from the next building and up against a parking facility.

The concrete structure will sit on 780 steel H-piles. It will connect with the main hospital at the fourth floor, via a 400-ft, structural-steel crosswalk that will be supported by five piers sitting on H piles or caissons.

The building will house diagnostic testing-including an MRI on an isolated slab-rehabilitation, a dozen operating rooms and future build-out space for four more. Three floors will be physician offices.

The building will consume 11,000 cu yds of concrete and 1,000 tons of rebar.

Student Center, Auburn University, Auburn, Ala.

Cost: $33.7 million
Owner: Auburn University
Construction manager: Brasfield & Gorrie LLC, Birmingham.
Architect: MHTN Architects Inc., Salt Lake City, Utah
Start/Completion: Mid-July 2006/Mid-June 2008

What appears to be several buildings is only one, and it will house student organization and government offices, student food service venues, ballroom and meeting rooms and a commissary-type kitchen, says John Mouton, senior adviser to Auburn’s president.

The student center follows university guidelines for smaller, Georgian-style buildings, but the three-story structure has extra sets of corners, indents, wings and juts, plus a circular tower-like corner in its 185,000 sq ft.

The new center, which replaces a 1950s version, also will serve as a transit station for the university’s campus bus system.

The building starts with a geopier foundation with pile caps atop. It has a concrete frame and masonry walls with a brick-and-glass exterior. An asphalt shingle roof will give it a traditional look.

ProLogis Park DeSoto, Buildings 1 & 5, Olive Branch, Miss.

Cost: $30 million
Owner: ProLogis
Contractor: The Conlan Co., Marietta, Ga.
Architect: Randall-Paulson Architects Inc., Roswell, Ga.
Start/Completion: January 2007/mid-September 2007

These industrial park warehouse buildings-Building 1 is 860,000 sq ft and Building 5 is 120,000 sq ft-have cast-on-site, tilt-up concrete walls, a technique that is “pretty standard” for ProLogis, says Charles King, project manager.

They are on a spread-footing foundation, with continuous footing around the perimeter that the panels sit on. The slabs are 6 in deep, with 4,000-psi capacity.

The load-bearing walls are typically 7.25 in. thick but go to 9.25 in. in some areas.

The 10- by 10-in-square steel interior columns sit 50 ft apart and carry the roof load. The roof is a rubber membrane over metal decking.

Building 1 has 28,000 cu yds of concrete and Building 5 has 5,000 cu yds.

M.M. Roberts Stadium Expansion, University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg

Cost: $28.6 million
Owner: University of Southern Mississippi
Contractor: Harrell Contracting Group, Ridgeland, Miss.
Architect: JH&H, Jackson, Miss.
Start/Completion: March 19, 2007/Aug. 1, 2008

This stadium expansion encloses the south end zone and adds 3,170 stadium and arena seats, a club level and luxury suites underneath a rooftop concourse that connects the east and west sections, says John Shows, project manager.

It runs about 110 ft deep by 430 ft at the exterior wall.

The foundation is 127 drilled and belled concrete pilings topped by concrete pile caps. The field level is a slab on grade. Upper levels are cast-in-place concrete slab and beams plus concrete shear walls at the East and West Towers that house mechanical equipment.

The project will use 10,650 cu yds of concrete, 1,100 tons of reinforcing steel, 110,000 sq ft of wire reinforcing mesh, 225 tons of structural and miscellaneous steel, 100,000 CMU blocks and 600,000 roman brick.

The Capri Condominiums, Birmingham

Cost: $25.6 million
Owner: Capri Acquisitions LLC
Contractor: B.L. Harbert International LLC, Birmingham
Architect: Rule, Joy, Trammell + Rubio LLC, Atlanta
Structural engineer: Stanley D. Lindsey & Associates Ltd., Atlanta
Start/Completion: November 2005/September 2007

Exterior wall forms had to be done before the underground parking was finished so architectural reveals that surround the building “could be installed and lined up properly,” says Tres Jernigan, project manager.

The partially below-ground garage has major cast-in-place post-tension beams throughout the slabs and cast-in-place walls surrounding it.

The 10-story building has almost 209,000 sq ft supported by steel H-piles on pile caps.

Cast-in-place post-tension beams also support the 4-ft above-ground pool on the second level terrace area.

The building has about 10,000 cu yds of concrete, 545 tons of rebar and 189,000 lbs of post-tension cables.

The exterior is painted concrete, brick and window walls. All eight condo levels have custom instead of identical units, Jernigan says.

Vanderbilt University Medical Center Central Parking Garage, Nashville

Cost: $25.5 million
Owner: Vanderbilt University Medical Center
Construction manager: Turner Universal, Nashville
Architect: Thomas Miller & Partners LLC, Brentwood
Start/complete dates: Summer 2006/November 2007

This 800-space garage is next to and extends over an existing four-level parking facility to meet high parking demand in limited space, said Ken Browning, Vanderbilt director of plant and services.

The original 450-space garage is on spread footers that could handle the additional load. However, interior reinforced concrete columns had to be enlarged.

The new six-level garage, also on spread footers, is concrete with post-tension cables. It replaces a demolished building.

The lower levels of the new garage had to be completed before work could start on the old garage, Browning says.

The tight schedule called for major pours between Friday and Monday, when parking demand is less, he adds.