Building Fast in Panama City

Contractor Used Tunnel Forming for High Productivity on Panama City Projects

By Scott Judy

Florida's Panhandle beaches have become hotbeds of condo and resort construction in recent years, with numerous facilities coming online at a steady pace.

Dallas-based forming contractor HighRise Concrete Systems is one of the firms striving to make the most out of this burgeoning market. The firm recently used tunnel forming to construct approximately 330,000 sq. ft. of concrete shell - for a total of 281 units - for two 20-plus-story Panama City Beach projects in less than 30 working days. That equals roughly 11,000 sq. ft. of shell space per workday.

This production rate was achieved in April on two separate projects: Laketown Wharf and the Shores of Panama. The two jobs are located on adjacent sites, and HighRise Concrete used separate crews to build them out.

Laketown Wharf will total approximately 1.4 million sq. ft. and will feature a combination of commercial space, 18 retail shops and restaurants connected to 750 luxury residential units. The Shores of Panama is a condominium development.

Walter Mawby, president of HighRise Concrete Systems, said that despite the volume achieved in April, it was not that different from the contractor's average operations.

"We do this all the time - 5,000 to 6,000 sq. ft. of floor area every day," he said, referencing an amount that could be achieved on a single project. "What's different is it was two jobs. So we were using four sets of tunnel forms in one location."

Tunnel forming utilizes L-shaped steel forms that are set in opposition to each other and locked together. This enables the slabs and vertical walls to be poured at the same time, which is one way that tunnel forming can achieve a faster pace of construction.

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Mawby said tunnel forming's time-saving characteristics were especially beneficial to meeting the schedule demands of the Laketown Wharf job. The overall contract called for a roughly 18-month build-out of approximately 1.4 million sq. ft. of residential units.

"It's very difficult to build a project like this in 18 months if you don't use something that creates the concrete shell very fast," he said. Plus, "When we strip out our form, it's a concrete wall from apartment to apartment, and it's a concrete wall from bedroom to living room. Then all of the electrical is already in the concrete walls, so that saves time also."

Since internal walls are constructed at the same time as the floor slabs, they can be skim-coated with a drywall mud and then painted, reducing the amount of drywall needed. Mawby said a tunnel-formed project may require about 60 percent less drywall.

He also testified to the quality characteristics touted for tunnel-formed structures.

"By combining reinforced concrete with the monolithic strength produced from forming walls and slab in an integral manner, the buildings are rock solid and able to withstand strong wind and seismic forces," Mawby said in a statement announcing his firm's recent activities in Panama City. "Additionally, the structures are low maintenance and eligible for numerous discounts offered by insurance underwriters."

The time savings adds up to overall cost savings, too, Mawby said.

"For a high-rise, a price (using tunnel forming) is about $20 to $22 per square foot for the concrete shell," he said. He added that the latest costs he's heard for some metro areas range from $35 to $55 per square foot utilizing conventional forming.

"So obviously it's a big savings," Mawby said. "The costs are getting out of hand. Prices are getting so high that people cannot build. So people are looking for a more cost-effective way."

Projects have to be designed to accommodate the tunnel forms, however. Even so, developers apparently are becoming increasingly open to using the process, even on high-rises. Tunnel forming historically has been more commonly used on low- and mid-rise structures.

Another concrete contractor, Total Concrete Structures of Atlanta, also has been keeping busy with tunnel-formed projects in Florida. TCS has either recently completed or else is building the following projects with tunnel forming: Floridays Orlando Resort, six six-story condo buildings; the Vue at Lake Eola, a 35-story condo in downtown Orlando; San Marcos Place, a 19-story condo in Jacksonville; the 27-story Manhattan condo in Atlanta; the 10-story Magnolia Bay Club condominium in Panama City; and Tribute Lofts, a project consisting of four-, six- and eight-story loft buildings in Atlanta.

John Stull, president of Total Concrete Structures, agreed with Mawby that interest is growing.

"The real interest has been in the overall cost savings to construct the frame quicker and with better quality and less drywall partitions," he said. "I get three or four calls monthly from new developers that are interested in looking at the tunnel-form option."

Stull added that in the Southeast, the tunnel forming market "is going to continue to grow in the condo market, and the apartment market is also going to gain a major exposure in the near future."