Historic Phoenix Federal Building Reborn as College Student Center
Revamping an 80-year-old building is not the norm in a city like Phoenix, where most residents obsess over the newest mall or subdivision. But students returning to Arizona State University's downtown Phoenix campus this month are studying and conducting student government within "new" digs built long before their parents were born.
ASU was granted usage in most of the U.S. Post Office Building on Central Avenue after ownership was transferred from the federal government to the City of Phoenix, which partners with ASU on all its downtown campus projects. The school's challenge was to adapt part of the aging interior into a modern facility, dubbed the Student Center @ the Post Office, complete with a high-tech learning center, recreation/social spaces and meeting rooms for dozens of student organizations.
The new student engagement facility was "initiated by ASU students who were interested in having a comparable level of experience at each of the four ASU campuses in the Valley," says Michael Coakley, associate vice president of educational outreach and student services at ASU.
Originally designed by local architects Lescher & Mahoney, the Spanish Colonial Revival-style building was built in 1936. Intended to be a six-story building, only three floors (two above ground) were ever built. Many of the building's systems were over-designed in case the extra floors were added later, says Don Mellow, project manager with Caliente Construction, Mesa, Ariz., the general contractor on the makeover.
While a small post office still operates in the building, most of the space—which included a mail sorting warehouse, loading docks and storage—was left unoccupied after a new main post office opened in 1968.
Architecture firm Holly Street Studio, Phoenix, was charged with reinventing 32,500 sq ft of the unoccupied basement and south side of the first floor. The post office, some small offices on the north side of the building and the historic exterior were left untouched. A new elevator is under construction, and the building's second floor will undergo renovation in a future phase.
Awarded design of the project in early 2011, Holly Street Studio sat down with students—who funded the $4.7-million project through facilities fees—to see what their needs and expectations were. "It was important to have their voices heard from the very beginning," says A. Ben Perrone, project architect.
A user group comprised of students and staff worked with the architects to develop the program for the new facility, Coakley says. "They stayed involved with the project from the initial discussions with the design professionals through construction," he adds.
With the goal of creating as bright and open a space as possible, designers knew they wanted to cut a large hole in the first floor plate to the lower level. But it was the revelation that the post office had existing skylights that brought their concept together. "When we did the first walkthrough, our reaction was immediately that we had to use the skylights because they were so cool, they were huge, and if we were going to go into the basement anyway, it made perfect sense," Perrone says.
But the building had some surprises in store for the builders as demolition began. "Cutting a hole in a floor that didn't intend to have a hole cut there was something that had to be carefully engineered and executed to make sure we didn't have any structural problems," Mellow says.
The original plans still existed for the building, which indicated that the building was framed with concrete and rebar. However, the project team came to discover that alternate specs were used and that some of the beams were steel with epoxy coating encased in concrete. Testing ensured that the live loads would be supported with the concrete beams removed and steel beams left intact, Perrone says.
A stairwell to the lower level is nestled beside one of the retained steel beams. The new opening was surrounded by large beeswax-sealed steel plates, which also line the stairwell.
A jumble of old pipes, original ducts and systems—some containing asbestos—had to be abated and demolished to reclaim overhead space, especially in the basement. “Most of the building had its original 1930s ductwork and the heating system was still steam,” says Scott Fitch, principal with MEP engineer ICDS of Guilford, Conn. This resulted in very low ceilings on the lower level. To open up the space, ceiling cassette-type fan coil units were used locally, minimizing the need for ductwork to heat and cool while increasing energy efficiency.
While he knew the old ducts had to come down, Mellow couldn't help but appreciate the skill shown by the original building's mechanical crew. "The ductwork design and craftsmanship was phenomenal," he says. "It kind of broke our hearts to tear some of this ductwork out because it was so well made."
The inefficient steam plant was redesigned by ICDS and retrofitted by Caliente to highly efficient condensing boilers under a separate contract, but concurrent with the other building improvements. "This not only reduced operational and maintenance costs but dramatically reduced pollution emissions in the downtown area," Fitch says.
Designers took advantage of the building's existing light wells by making many of the partitions on the lower level out of glass, so that as much natural light as possible could reflect through the student government space, math lab, writing center and conference rooms.
While the first floor space—the former loading and receiving area for postal carriers—already had high ceilings, Caliente had to remove massive catwalks that were attached to the ceiling and ran through the space. Mellow says they were an early security system for the post office, allowing security personnel to view all the goings-on from above each room—even in the bathrooms—until access was sealed some years ago.
Demolition revealed a wide variety of flooring, from terrazzo to tile to concrete. The team opted to grind all the floors to a similar terrazzo-like finish, retaining all the anomalies. "You'll see a lot of areas where there's different colored concrete," Perrone says. "We just left all that. It was part of the story we were trying to tell of the building."
