The McGuire Apartments, a 25-story building at 2nd Avenue and Wall Street that was completed only nine years ago, must be vacated by the end of the year and demolished due to irreparable safety problems:
- Nick Denny on Flickr
The building owner has informed officials at the Seattle Department of Planning and Development (DPD) of the extensive construction defects, which principally involve corrosion of post-tensioned cables and concrete material and reinforcement placement deficiencies. The post-tensioned cables are corroding because the ends of the cables were not properly protected with corrosion preventative paint, and the grout used to seal the cable ends and anchors was not the specified non-shrink grout and was defectively installed. As a result, water leaked into these areas and caused the cable ends to rust, and then corrode. In addition, reinforcement placement in the building’s exterior frame is defective, resulting in cracking and spalling of concrete, as well as structural impairment.
Well shit.
Tip from Cornichon at Seattlest
glad i’m not among the remaining hewitt arch employees tomorrow morning.
I have been wondering about that building — it has *always* looked like it was being re-worked/worked on. I feel bad for those that bought units. What a waste 🙁
With all these instana-shit looking condos littering the downtown skyline I would not be surprised to see this story repeart itself more than once.
Labor and Industries will give any contractor a license. The contractor does not have to attend any formal schooling on the trade or they can even have a history of fraud. I know because I was a victim of one of the scrupulous contractors that was allowed to be licensed.
What? the Mcguire? hey! i friggin live there!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! well that sux big ball balls! i had the best veiw of seattle. thanx while it lasted. but can you tell me why i still hear banging of construction. Jobs over. go home. let me sleep! its 2 in the afternoon!!!
There are a lot of facts yet to be determined.
1) The structural design was by ABKJ, not Hewitt. Unless Hewitt provided the specification for defective grout, they were probably not the main designers.
2) The grout was probably installed by a speciality subcontractor, not by McCarthy employees. (Fact to be verified.) Before doing the work, the specialty subcontractor should have provided a submittal of products to be used. If they did not submit the grout specified, the general contractor and the structural engineer should have caught the error. If they submitted the specified grout but used an unapproved grout, the general contractor, the test lab and the city inspector will have questions to answer. Almost certainly, carpenters were not used in installation of steel or grout.
If the defect was primarily the fault of a specialty subcontractor rather than design, it is likely that the subcontractor does not have the insurance or financial resources to pay for the fix, which would leave McCarthy holding the bag, as the general contractor has overall responsibility for construction quality, and does not get free of liability by subcontracting work. McCarthy will probably seek to defend by showing a design flaw.
3) Concrete spalling is usually caused when the rebar is too close to the exterior face; there is not enough concrete cover to prevent water from getting in. As the steel rusts, it expands and opens cracks, causing accelerated corrosion. Failure to provide adequate cover is a problem for the steel installer, general contractor, test lab. While the city inspector may not have a financial liability, there will be a political liability if people conclude they are not keeping the public safe.
4) When the building was built, there was a local building boom. This creates a problem of too many dollars chasing too few good craftsmen. Many of the problems that cause buildings to be shrouded in Tyvek are the result of untrained workers failing to follow a few simple, important rules for construction. Failure to use a non-shrink grout sounds like the sort of decision made by a contractor foreman or engineer who was not trained or supervised properly.
5) Many of the records for the project may not be available any longer. If the facts cannot be determined to allow for a courtroom defense, a negotiated settlement is more likely, and we may never know exactly what happened. However, from the standpoint of public safety, the city must show that the right lessons are learned so this does not happen again.
@48, 44… I’d like to add that architects like to use Post Tensioned slabs for residential and office buildings because it requires fewer columns which opens up floor space and window-space (I think architects like to use the word “volumes” a lot).
There are some problems with PT slabs as they are prone to vibrations and creeping of the concrete can make them droop over the years (esp if they use shoddy grout to seal the conduit). For a lot of reasons, they are very finicky, but if they are designed/constructed properly they provide all of those benefits mentioned by @31.
Very few residential buildings use Pre-Stressed concrete construction as it usually requires fabrication off site, adding transportation costs to the budget…Pre-Stressed construction is much more common for bridge and over-pass construction, where they Post-Tension Pre-Stressed sections together (such as with the light-rail line on the way to the airport). This way they don’t have to have the form-work in place in the field for all the time it takes the concrete to set. This way they can install a freeway overpass practically overnight instead of closing the freeway for weeks.
Sorry for the encyclopedia entry…guess sometimes it’s therapeutic to write about work rather than actually doing it 😀
@56, regarding #3, I’d have to see the spalling (spawling?) that occurred to be sure, but it can also be caused by deflections in the concrete causing tension cracks at a column, beam, or shear-wall interface, as well as by inadequate cover.
If it was caused by deflections, it’s more likely because of the failing of the PT system, but I suppose since it’s on the exterior frame it is quite possibly due to inadequate weather-cover.
@25, the weary/wary thing makes me CRAZY. It’s something I never saw or heard before moving to the Pacific Northwest but I now I see it all the time on Yelp and Slog and I hear it in person as well. What the hell is that?
There are probably several other buildings in Seattle that are built in such a shoddy manner. The next big quake will tell us which ones. Just stay out of Belltown. Some of those buildings went up way too fast.
@59: To be fair, I’ve encountered the weary/leery/wary thing all over the country (not just in the Northwest). It seems to be an under-30 thing. Perhaps it’s because they all grew up typing more than speaking. I imagine that the correct meanings used to be associated with the correct spoken words but were misspelled in texts and IMs, leading to the conflation. The conflation has since spilled over into spoken speech.
As for 9-year-old buildings built so poorly and with such little oversight that they are about to collapse… THAT might be a Northwest-specific phenomenon!
Is Mayes Testing using pretty stupid inspectors to miss all of this. Beware by low cost inspections their slogan is “Professional Solutions That Stand” guess its not standing now! They are growing to fast and this is what they give, and yet people will still use their services watch the damage control used. they should have used damage control on the inspectors.Good job Mike Mayes like you say EXPAND EXPAND EXPAND everything else will FALL into place. well its falling!