Building Statistics

Part I

General Building Data

Building name Columbia Place

Location and site Square 369, 915 L Street, N.W. Washington, DC 20001

Building Occupant Name Hotel - Quadrangle Development Corp.

Apartments - Marriott International Inc.

Occupancy Hotel and Apartments – Mixed Use

Size Total - 696,844 SF

Hotel - 421,617 SF

Apartments - 275,227 SF

Number of Stories 13 Stories Above, 2 Stories of Parking Below

Primary Project Team

Owner Quadrangle Development Corp.

Operator (For Hotel Only) Marriott International Inc.

General Contractor Hensel Phelps

Structural Engineer Fernandez and Associates Structural Engineers, P.C.

Electrical Engineer Power Design Inc.

Mechanical Engineer Limbach Company

Millwork Subcontractor ISEC Inc.

Architect of Record Cooper Carry Inc.

Architectural Historian EHT Traceries

Code Consultant Jensen Hughes

LEED Paladino and Company

Interior Design Forrest Perkins

Other Project Information

Dates of Construction April 28th, 2016 to September 24th, 2018

Total Construction Cost $160 Million

Project Delivery Method Design – Bid – Build

Architecture

Columbia Place adds both a luxury hotel and apartments to the corner of 9th and L Street in Washington DC. Some features include a two story lobby, a private terrace, and roof top access to a terrace and fitness center. This mixed use complex is also going to bring more retail and restaurants to DC. The unique facade combines old architecture with new modern architecture by incorporating historical buildings into its exterior and interior design.

Major National Model Codes Hotel and Apartments: IBC 2012

Zoning Hotel - DD/C-2-A (9TH STREET HISTORIC BUILDINGS)

DD/C-3-C (REMAINDER OF SITE)

Apartments - DD/C-3-C

Historical Requirements

The following Preservation Plan responds to the proposed redevelopment of a large portion of Square 369 with a twelve-story hotel and residential building that results in the removal of historical buildings on L Street and incorporates seven contributing buildings in the Shaw Historic District into the development. The project focuses on preserving eight buildings within Square 369.

Building Enclosure

Building Façades

Windows

Aluminum Window
Insulated Clear Vision Glass

Curtain Wall Systems

Aluminum Window Wall
Aluminum Storefront

Facade / Exterior Materials

Aluminum Composite Metal Panel System
Insulated Metal Panel System
Aluminum Sunscreen System
Brick Veneer Faced Architectural Precast Concrete Panel
Hand Set Brick
4” Split Faced Brick
Stone Veneer Faced Architectural Precast Concrete Panel
Stone Cladding System

Roofing

Weather Resistant Covering
Rigid Insulation
Protection Layer
3” Water Retention and Drainage Layer
Separation Layer
Planting / 2” Pavers

Sustainability Features

Roof Top Terrace

Green Roof

Sunscreen System

Part II

Primary Engineering Systems

Construction

Columbia Place is consists of a cast-in-place concrete structure which is typical for a building in DC. Some of the means and methods for this system are pumping and crane and bucket method. For the crane and bucket method there are two cranes on site. The apartment crane is located at the southwest corner of the courtyard and is 180 feet tall. The hotel cranes stands in the footprint of historical building three and is 200 feet tall. The site itself is pretty tight and there is little room to move around the site easily once the building structure starts. In order to help with this, the job site was extended into the adjacent streets. Some other unique things about the construction of this building are the schedule and the demolition. The schedule is complex and consists of two portions that have separate but interconnecting schedules. This project also has selective demolition since most of the historical buildings on the site are being incorporated into the design. Only the back parts of the historical buildings are being demoed. There is also one historical building that is being picked up and moved to a new location on site.

Electrical

The apartment portion of the building and the hotel portion of the building both have separate electrical systems. This was done because the owner is turning over the hotel to the operator and they have their own separate building codes which have to be followed. The switchgears both of the basements are equipped to handle the incoming utility of 2,500 A and 3,000 A. Both of the hotel and apartments also have two winding transformers and their own diesel stand-by generator. Each floor of the building has a circuit breaker type panel board which handles the electrical load for that floor.

Lighting

The lighting in both of the apartments and hotel is very unique. Both of the lobbies have a complex lighting design that is very appealing. The hotel lobby has an extremely detailed wood paneled wall which is backlit to make the wood feature stand out. Most of the fixtures in the building consists of mostly different types of fluorescent lights. One of the more unique lighting designs in the building are the step lighting. These lights are located under the treads of the stairs in the lobby of the building. Each light highlights the treads below it and creates an interesting effect. Natural lighting was taking into high consideration when this building was being designed. Both of the apartments and hotel have a curtain wall that goes all the way up the south side of each portion of the building. The south face is going to get the most sunlight throughout the day and the curtail wall will allow a great amount of sunlight into the building.

Mechanical

Just like the electrical system, the mechanical system is also separate from the apartment and hotel portions of the building. The main mechanical system for the apartments and hotel are ductless split air conditioning units. These are located in all of the rooms for the apartments and hotel. The reason for this is because with these systems each room can be controlled individually. The first two floors of the building consist of a forced air duct system. This is a more common area and can be conditioned by a single duct system. The mechanical pent houses are located in the roof and house two 490 ton electrical water chillers and two 490 ton cooling towers.

Structural

There are many components that make up the structural system for my building. The main structure of my building consists of cast-in-place concrete. This includes all of the footings, foundation and shear walls, columns, slabs, and concrete beams. The structure also consists of some high strength structural steel framing. These steel framing pieces are mostly located in places where the span between columns is longer. Steel framing is also used on the roof structure to support the components that are in the mechanical penthouse. All of the slabs in the structure have post tension cables inside of them. These are used for increasing the strength of the concrete and allows for the slab thicknesses to be less. This is important because it increases the floor to ceiling height. One of the unique structural designs that was done for this building was the temporary shoring and restructuring of the historical buildings. This was so challenging because of the selective demolition of the buildings. The one building that was moved had to be significantly braced in order to not fall apart during the move. Most of the restructuring of the historical buildings was strengthening both their columns and their slabs.

Additional Engineering Systems and Engineering Supporting Systems

Fire Protection

The smoke exhaust system is initiated automatically by a signal from the fire alarm panel when an area smoke sensor is activated. All smoke functions in the smoke control system shall be disabled on a signal from the fire alarm system. When the smoke control system is enabled, the motor operated damper associated with each smoke exhaust fan shall open. Once the damper has been proven fully open, the smoke exhaust fan shall start and provide 100% exhaust air to the exterior. Door actuator motors shall open all doors that are part of the smoke control system to provide smoke exhaust makeup air. In zones where makeup air is not readily available, the return damper of the HVAC system serving the smoke zone closes and the supply fan turns down to provide adequate makeup air to the space.

Transportation

The hotel portion of the building has six elevators which go to every floor in the building. Four of these elevators are located in the lobby area and the other two are located near the back of the building and are used for employees. The hotel also has two main sets of stairs that go to every floor in the building as well. One of these sets is located in the front of the building and the other one is in the back. The apartment portion has four elevators total. Two of these elevators are located near the front of the building while the other one is the freight elevator which I sin the back. The fourth elevator is located inside the Lurgan building, which is the historical building that is part of the apartments. The apartments also have two main sets of stairs that go to every floor in the building. One set is located in the front while the other is located near the back. There is another set of stairs in the Lurgan building which is by the elevator.

Telecommunications

This hotel system will consist of background music systems placed throughout the public spaces. This will include the lobby, restaurants, bars, dinning, fitness, pre-function, pool area, and other public corridors and spaces. The meeting spaces will have built-in audio for microphones, mp3 players or similar devices. These rooms will also have support for portable assisted listening system that should be provided by the hotel or associated third party provider. All video systems are expected to be portable systems and not built-in. These are typically provided by the hotel or an associated third party provider.

Special Systems

Selective Demolition:

This project started off with a very unique site that included many different historical buildings that needed to be preserved. Existing on the site were ten historical buildings and the plan was to keep almost all of them while still maximizing the new building footprint area. Out of those ten there were only two buildings that were demolished completely.

There are six building located on 9th Street that are both long and narrow, and each extend deep into their lots. In order to compromise with incorporating these building into the design and not completely demolish them, the buildings were semi demolished so that they extended the same amount into the site. The buildings on 9th street are now part of the hotel and each house their own restaurant inside of them.

As for the buildings on L Street, one is being completely demolished while the others are becoming part of the design. The smallest building on that street is being demolished down to its façade and actually being picked up and moved against the Lurgan building. The Lurgan Building is the biggest of the historical buildings on site. This building is having its interiors demolished, only keeping the floor, and is being refitted with new support systems to become part of the apartment complex.

To prepare for this demolition there were many precautionary measures that were taken into account. Since these buildings are so old it was known from the start that there was going to be lead paint and asbestos that had to be handled properly. Demolition teams were required to wear protective hazmat suits while doing their work. The demotion materials that these crews were dealing with were mostly masonry and concrete. It was a huge emphasis put on the fact that teams should take their time and be precise with their work so they didn’t harm the structure that was staying up.

Masonry and Curtain Wall:

Both of these building components are not used that much in the building’s design. There are mostly used to highlight certain areas of the building and let in the maximum amount of daylight where appropriate. The masonry that is being used is both veneer and structural. It is being attached to the structure with the use of steel anchor connections. The structural masonry acts as part of the lateral support systems for the building. The curtain wall for each of the buildings is located on their southeast corner and spans the height of the buildings. The southeast corner of the buildings sees the most sun and became an appropriate spot to place the curtain wall panels in order to allow in more daylight.

Support of Excavation:

The surroundings of this site make it very unique when it comes to excavation. It neighbors other buildings that are similar in height and there is a ton of pedestrian traffic in the area. In order to compensate for this, the soldier piles that were placed in on the site were vibrated into the ground. This was done instead of hammering them in so that there was not any dirt and oil flying all over and potentially effecting the site’s surroundings. The historical buildings on site also posed another unique situation for the excavation. An entirely different method was used for the soldier piles around the historical buildings. In order to not affect the integrity of their structure, a drill and cast method was used. This consisted of the holes being drilled, concrete being poured inside, and the piles being placed in after. There is not much to the concrete being used here since the sand and dirt in the holes act as the aggregate.