Owner/Developer and Construction Manager Related Cos.
Lead Design Firm Office for Metropolitan Architecture
General Contractor Webcor
Civil/Structural Engineer MKA
Concrete Webcor Concrete
A concrete pour cycle that took just three days per floor is the highlight of the Transbay Block 8 project in San Francisco. It was a key factor in enabling the team to finish the $300-million project, which includes a high-rise residential building, in May 2018, only about 14 months after its groundbreaking.
The pour cycle impressed ENR’s Best of the Best panel of judges, who selected the project as tops in the specialty construction category.
Webcor, the project’s general contractor and its specialty contractor for the concrete work, says the three-day cycle outpaced the typical period of five to seven days, saving months, compared with the typical concrete phase. The company says it was the fastest such pour to date among West Coast contractors.
The project, called The Avery, is composed of a 55-story tower, a detached, nine-story podium building and a paseo. It contains 548 residential units: 118 luxury condominiums, 280 market-rate apartments and 150 low-income apartments.
The three-day concrete pours began on the 11th level. According to Webcor, the plan required constructing a core wall that moved four floors ahead of the active deck. As the core wall rose ahead of the floors, the company followed a sequencing plan for pouring each floor and raising the core wall every three days.
Webcor says that its pour-cycle strategy began with coordinating completion of the deck, columns and core wall. Completing work on the floors allowed curtain wall, building systems and interior finishes to follow and to maintain the time savings gained from the concrete work as the building proceeded upward.
