Wachovia First Street

Despite the Bank’s Turmoil, Work Progresses on $1.3 Billion Charlotte Campus

By Debra Wood

In spite of a reversal of economic fortunes within Wachovia, Batson-Cook Co. of West Point, Ga., is continuing with its management of $420 million in contracts for the bank’s planned $1.3 billion mixed-use development in Charlotte, N.C.

Planning just a few years ago to grow its roots deeper in Charlotte, Wachovia embarked on its First Street Cultural Campus, an ambitious effort that would deliver a new 51-story headquarters tower and trading floor for the bank, downtown condominium units, retail space and several cultural facilities for the city.

The condominium component has been scuttled for now, but construction continues on the tower and all other planned work, despite the bank’s acquisition by Wells Fargo & Co. of San Francisco at the end of last year and continuing uncertainty about its future.

“The First Street Cultural Campus will create a wonderful anchor on South Tryon Street for art and culture in our city,” says Michael J. Smith, president and CEO of Charlotte Center City Partners, a municipal service district-supported organization that promotes and facilitates the economic, cultural and residential development of the urban core.

(Photo courtesy Batson-Cook Co.)

The Wachovia First Street project includes the Bechtler Museum, Mint Museum, Knight Theater and African American Arts and Culture center, which the city will own and operate in conjunction with different cultural groups once construction wraps up. Bob Bertges, director of corporate real estate for Wachovia, told McGraw-Hill Construction in 2007 that property taxes from the office tower and planned condominiums would pay about half of the facilities’ operational costs, with the balance coming from a rental-car tax.

The campus is near the city’s convention center and a new city park.

The Bechtler Museum will house 20th Century artwork. The 1,150-seat Knight Theater will provide space for live presentations. The Bechtler and Knight are being built by Rodgers Building and Walter B. Davis Co., both of Charlotte.

The Mint Museum will contain the Mint’s Craft + Design collection and a portion of its Randolph Road collection. Batson-Cook in a joint venture with R.J. Leeper Construction Co. of Charlotte is building the Mint core and shell and Rodger’s will do the upfit.

And in a joint venture with H.J. Russell & Co. of Atlanta and Leeper, Batson-Cook is building the Harvey B. Gantt Center for African American Arts and Culture, which will have space for live performances, as well as fine art, historical and other exhibits.

Batson-Cook and Leeper broke ground on the two-block project in January 2006 and have completed the underground tunnels and a 2,200-car, eight-level below-grade parking garage. Batson-Cook is now working on the office tower in a joint venture with H.J. Russell.

Atlanta-based tvsdesign designed the office tower, a nine-story building that contains four floors of trading space, the underground parking deck and the theater.

Bertges says the trading space is what sparked the project. The bank had estimated it would save $24 million a year to operate a trading center in Charlotte rather than New York. At that time, Bertges says the project would deepen the bank’s anchor in the community. Wachovia originally planned to occupy half of the 1.5 million-sq-ft Wachovia Corporate Center. But now that’s uncertain.

“The amount of space we may occupy in the tower will depend on the business plans we’re now developing for our merged company,” says bank spokesperson Mary Eshet in a written statement. “We will explore various alternatives for use of the tower’s office space as we better understand our own needs.”

Moving vehicles underground

Because the project is located within Charlotte’s Uptown Mixed-Use District, the design team had to adhere to guidelines for service vehicles not backing onto the street.

“A huge part of the project was to make the 500 block and the cultural campus pedestrian,” says Dave Brown, associate principal with tvsdesign. “We had to design (it) as if it had no backyard. Everything was a front door.”

tvsdesign placed the loading dock at the bottom of the parking deck, ramping down 85 ft, with an entrance a block away and passing through a tunnel under the African American Arts and Culture center. , now under construction by Batson-Cook, Russell and Leeper. A second tunnel for cars sits atop the service tunnel.

“The grades of Charlotte played into our favor in terms of getting service vehicles down below grade,” Brown says. Initial plans for the 400-ft-long by 50-ft-wide parcel called for clear space above the ramp, but the cultural center decided it could build its arts facility on the property. The Freelon Group of Durham, N.C., designed the African American Arts and Culture building.

Crews excavated through about 30 ft of dirt and blasted the remaining granite with 700 lbs of explosives to create space for the 1 million-sq-ft parking deck and loading dock and hauled away 450,000 cu yds of material. It took 10 months to reach 100 ft below street level. Blythe Development Co. of Charlotte and Atlanta Rock Services of Marietta, Ga., were the excavation and blasting subcontractors.

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“Getting to the bottom of the hole was a huge milestone for us,” Brown says. “Most projects celebrate topping out. We celebrated getting to the bottom.”

Batson-Cook completed preblast surveys and monitored vibration at locations onsite and in neighboring buildings, says Curt Rigney, project manager. The company used an H-pile and lagging shoring system in locations with soil, and below that, the shoring included rock anchors on 8-ft centers and mesh and shotcrete to hold back loose rock. Spread footings above the rock support the building.

The garage takes up one city block and has concrete walls. Excavation and blasting began in January 2006. The underground parking deck structure was completed in October.

Office Tower

The office tower features a sheer-tube, cast-in-place structure. TRC Worldwide Engineering in Bentwood, Tenn., evaluated several systems before settling on the cantilevered punch tube system for the 160-ft square structure. Self-climbing metal forms were used to pour the tube.

“A tube sticking straight in the air is very strong,” says Tommy Hagwood, engineer of record and principal in charge for TRC. “The exterior frame is going up quickly.”

The exterior skin takes the lateral wind and seismic loads. There are no sheer walls in the core. Columns were placed at 10 ft on center around the building. Precast double Ts span from the exterior to the core. A slab tops the beams.

“A deep perimeter beam goes around like a belt on every floor,” Brown says. “There is little reshoring that needs to happen.”

Crews complete a 26,000-sq-ft floor every four days, Rigney says. Batson-Cook expects to top out in June. The team used an 18,000-psi concrete, supplied by Concrete Supply Co. of Charlotte, on the lower floors. The concrete is pumped via an onsite trailer pump.

“It allowed us to reduce the quantity and amount of rebar in the structure,” Rigney adds. “The mix is hotter than a standard mix and required blanketing to keep the forms insulated, so heat loss was not dramatic, which could result in cracking.”

When the building starts to truncate at the 42nd floor, it switches to a structural-steel frame with Vierendeel trusses, which are nontriangulated.

The trading center in the podium includes redundant energy, water and communication systems. Extra generators, cooling towers and an under-floor air system were installed. R.T. Dooley of Charlotte is responsible for the trading floor infrastructure.

Going green

A ninth underground level, beneath the parking deck, holds stormwater collection tanks, which can gather more than 300,000 gallons of water off roofs and plazas. Additionally, a recycling system collects air-conditioning condensate from every unit on every floor of the office building. An in-house system filters the water and reuses it for cooling towers.

“As long as it keeps raining, you don’t have to tap into the domestic water supply,” Brown says.

The team is aiming for LEED gold certification for the office building. The design, with its low-flow fixtures and recycling, is intended to reduce water consumption by 50%.

A unitized curtain-wall system, fabricated and erected by Juba Aluminum of Atlanta, clads the exterior. Two feet of clear glass tops the glazing on each floor, letting in daylight. Below that is a high-performance glass with a sophisticated low-E coating to block out heat energy.

“The blinds track with the sunlight and direct light into the office building, to increase energy efficiency,” Rigney says. Daylight sensors on each floor adjust lighting fixtures according to the amount of natural light coming in.