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Walker Parking Consultants
Denver, Colorado Ameristar Parking Kansas City, Missouri Ameristar Casinos required a four-story garage that was 374'-0" x 508'-0." Expansion joints separated two garages in each direction and created four structures. At the southeast corner, a stair/elevator tower was separated from the garage and enclosed to serve an adjacent enclosed walkway which was connected to the casino. Except for the retaining walls and foundations at the enclosed walkway, the parking garage was supported on 60'-0" to 80'-0" long auger cast piles and pile caps. After completing the design and drawings for this fast track project the owner priced the job and found that he could afford another parking level, so we redesigned the structure and foundation system as well as the lateral resisting system for a five-story garage capable of parking 2654 cars. With close coordination between contractor and consultants and early and timely turnover of shop drawings during the construction administration phase, the contractor only needed eight months to complete the project.
Module 4 West is the seventh five-story parking garage which Denver International Airport has begun to build. It is 244 feet wide x 516 feet long separated by a single expansion joint. As two five-story precast concrete structures supported on drilled piers, it is not very special except that all seismic and wind loads are transferred to the foundation system with steel and precast concrete K-frames which open up this 1714 parking spaced structure to light and a more efficient line-of-sight. While each level was served by tree-type precast stairs, some of the more challenging detailing aspects involved all of the bridges which served this garage and connected it to other garages or to the terminal entry roadways on the west side. Roadway retaining walls had to allow for expansion to the bridges as well as the parking structures. Salina Parking Garage The Salina Regional Health Center required the first elevated parking structure in the history of Salina, Kansas. This five-story garage was built for 715 cars across Santa Fe Avenue from the Medical Center. So one of the unique design requirements was to enclose a stair elevator on the west side of the parking garage, build an enclosed bridge across the street to an enclosed stair and elevator on the opposite side which would serve the medical center. The structure was accented with thinset brick on spandrels and walls which we acid etched, the entire structure was supported on individual and continuous pier caps which were supported by 65'-0" auger cast piles.
The Tucson Airport Authority required a 1624 car garage to store its rental fleet and therefore required a three level garage protected with a roof. With the advent of 9/11, one of the airport changes was to eliminate any parking closer than 300'-0". This reduced the area for parking and changed some walls to diagonal walls while others were diagonal to match the site. More details were added because of these geometry changes while others were added to better describe the structural steel/precast K-frame lateral bracing system. The ramps were framed with separate precast spandrels and separate columns were added at the ramp expansion joint. The main entry at the south elevation as well as the north stairs was separated from the parking structure. The two main stairs at the north and south elevations were also covered with curved steel roofs and small steel structures were added for that southwestern touch. Tyndall Parking Structure This 1686 space garage constructed for the University of Arizona in Tucson was actually bisected by Fourth Street creating two five-story parking garages and two independent circulation systems. Since the garage was constructed in an existing neighborhood instead of on campus it required thinset brick inlaid walls and matching spandrels. Structural steel screens and canopy connections to brick and CMU facing at precast entries provided some detailing and design challenges. Carl Walker
Coreslab Structures Copyright 2006 |
