Ship Shape

Newest Hayden Ferry Tower Sustains Nautical Theme

by Scott Blair

Suncor Development continues a nautical theme with its newest phase at Hayden Ferry Lakeside. A new 12-story office tower joins the existing structures, along with the addition of an eight-level parking structure, retail space and outdoor areas.

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The newest phase of Hayden Ferry Lakeside is taking shape beside Tempe Town Lake in Tempe, Ariz. The growing complex, developed by Tempe-based SunCor Development, includes an existing eight-story office tower, a parking garage and a condominium tower. Phase II will add a 12-story office building, a parking structure and retail space.

As with the first phase, McCarthy Building Companies is constructing the new tower and garage. Once the first tower was complete in 2002, the general contractor moved its offices to the site. The contractor is also currently building another condominium tower at Hayden Ferry and has been named as the contractor for the site's 12-story $104 million Le Meridien Hotel.
DFD CornoyerHedrick of Phoenix, Ariz. designed the new office tower, and was also the designer on phase one. The design of both phases was heavily influenced by nautical shapes, and the two towers have similar oval, bow-like shapes.

At the beginning of phase two, SunCor Development and the designers met for a 'lessons-learned charrette', according to Buck Yee, project director with DFD. "It was an all day session understanding the good, bad and the ugly of the things that went on with phase one," Yee said. "We formulated a list and incorporated those components into phase two to have an improved building."
One change was how the curved wall interfaced with the structural system.

"Although our details had provided the design intent, the actual installation of how it was finally put together was realized during the phase one construction," Yee said. "We had the advantage of the shop drawings this time, to help us better detail the set of documents."

The office tower sits above a single-level, 156-space underground parking garage. While there was some compacted fill remaining from the previous phase, workers got down to a challenging sand, gravel and cobble soil level during the excavation, according to Kurt Nyberg, McCarthy project manager for the office tower. The foundation is comprised of 96 caissons, ranging in size from three-ft. to eight-ft. in diameter. Since the site is located at the foot of 'A' Mountain, the caissons on the south side nearest the mountain went down 22-ft. while the north side required 38-ft. deep caissons to reach the sloping bedrock.

A typical floor on the post-tensioned concrete structure was poured in two halves on an eight-day cycle. McCarthy poured the concrete for the post-tensioned structure, with Ceco Concrete of Phoenix doing the forming. "The construction was really fast - on the eighth day we'd pour the north half, on the 12th day we'd pour the south half, then on the 16th day we'd pour the north side on the floor above, and so on," Nyberg said. "It was actually a two-day less cycle than phase one," because of improved forming methods.

The building features the same high-performance aluminum and glass curtain wall system as the previous tower.The HVAC system uses a variable air volume system for air distribution.

One major change from the first phase is the two-story entrance lobby, which features textured art glass and granite, backlit in blue light to appear like water.

"The lobby space is actually entered from where the pointed ends of the building are, so you have to experience a long lobby journey before you get to the center elevators," Yee said. "We used that as the opportunity to create this under-the-sea theme."

The tower also features a 100-ft. metal spire that will project 40-ft. above the top of the building and will be lit with a strip of blue LED lights. The surrounding campus will also feature nautically-themed landscaping, including a large water feature emulating the spray of water created by the wake of a boat.

"Phase two is SunCor's signature building of the campus, so there is a lot of attention to detail on it," Nyberg said.

McCarthy is also completing the final build-out of an eight-level, 2,460-space parking garage. During the first phase, two underground levels and the surface level were completed, with temporary columns erected to protect the rebar in place until the second phase began.

Initially SunCor planned to complete four new levels, with another four levels planned with a future office tower for phase three. "We were about halfway through when they suggested we just finish off the garage now to prevent the hassle of closing it off in the future,'" said Justin Dent, project manager for McCarthy on the garage.

The garage primarily features post-tensioned concrete. "There are 31 concrete pours total for the garage structure, and we are about a pour a week, with four pours per floor."

The garage features three-ft. pre-cast concrete panels that will go on the outside of each level to hide the slab edge and beams, masonry accent walls and pre-cast concrete sheer walls.

The garage also features a three-story retail component that cantilevers out from the garage. Continuing the nautical theme the shape follows a radius, with the 35-ft. wide center being the widest point.

Key Players

Owner/Developer: Suncor Development
Architect: DFD CornoyerHedrick (Tower/ Site); ADM Group (Garage)
General Contractor: McCarthy Building Company
Concrete: McCarthy; Ceco Concrete
Electrical: Delta Diversified
Mechanical: Midstate Mechanical

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