PROJECT PROFILE
City Creek Center
In an effort to revitalize the land surrounding temple square in beautiful Salt Lake City, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints created a plan to bring new life into the downtown area by developing a vibrant city center complete with new residential housing, offices, and shopping.
Details
PROJECT LOCATION: Salt Lake City, UT
MASON CONTRACTOR: IMS Masonry, Inc.
ARCHITECT: Hobbs & Black Architects
GENERAL CONTRACTOR: Jacobsen Construction
OWNER: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints
SPEC MIX DISTRIBUTOR: Interstate Brick – West Jordan, Utah
SPEC MIX PRODUCTS:
– Portland Lime & Sand / Grey (5,381 – 80 lb bags)
– Portland Lime & Sand / Color (26,625 – 80 lb bags)
– Core Fill Grout – Coarse (9,358 – 80 lb bags)
– Self Consolidating Grout (31,100 – 80 lb bags)
In the case of the City Creek Center project, refurbishing the existing buildings was not a viable option as the cost of compliance to newer building codes, due to the new demands of earthquakes and other building loads, was prohibitive. Consequently, newer buildings were designed by Hobbs & Black Architects utilizing a specially designed Structural Brick Veneer (SBV) system that effectively retained the existing city appearance and color by matching the details of the older surrounding buildings, while meeting the new, more stringent codes.
For construction workers in greater Salt Lake City, the news of a $1.2 billion project spanning 23 acres was music to their ears. This was especially true for IMS Masonry, one of the mason contractors that earned the opportunity to install a combination of 4”, 6” and 8” SBV totaling 482,730 units, as well as 62,000 8” CMU and 1,500 pieces of precast on the project’s retail section. Given the fact IMS Masonry is an avid SPEC MIX user four separate products totaling approximately 2,000 cubic yards of material were supplied. For convenience and mobility, each product: SPEC MIX Type S grey mortar, Type S colored mortar, Core Fill Grout-Coarse and Self Consolidating Grout-Fine were packaged in 80-pound bags preblended and ready to mix with water.
The benefit and cost savings of SBV, a reinforced brick veneer wall that does not require structural back up, were tremendous. Hollow brick conforming to ASTM C652 with larger cells to allow for reinforcing and grout are used in SBV walls. The key to the City Creek Center’s SBV system was using SPEC MIX Self Consolidating Grout® (SCG) Fine aggregate formulation. This highly fluid masonry grout was specifically engineered to completely fill bond beams and occupy all areas around steel reinforcement in the narrow cores of the SBV. Given the fact that SPEC MIX SCG eliminated the need for IMS Masonry to mechanically consolidate or reconsolidate this grout, major gains in productivity were realized by IMS’s production crew.
“SPEC MIX Self Consolidating Grout proved to be an amazing product when filling the cores of the SBV wall system. Considering some of the cores were only 4” and 6” wide, the SCG material was absolutely our best option to ensure the brick walls were completely grouted without any voids.” -Brett Hales, Project Manager, IMS Masonry