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Excavation site of the new Comcast Innovation and Technology
Center. Ed Hille / Staff Photographer
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GMCS Editorial: Congratulations to both Fran and Mark
Pietrini and the entire B. Pietrini & Sons crew as they undertake one of the
largest pours ever here in the city this weekend. 400 trucks and four pumps running should make
for a busy site all weekend long!
They're ready to do the concrete rumble on Arch Street.
Contractors for Comcast Corp.'s new skyscraper on the
1800 block will pour 400 truckloads of concrete over 10 to 12 hours beginning early
Saturday for a 10-foot-thick, 15-million-pound foundation mat.
This foundation mat for the city's tallest skyscraper
will attach the building's structural support - its core - to city bedrock.
Officials said Thursday that it will be one of the
largest concrete pours in city history.
Comcast announced the plans for the Comcast Innovation
and Technology Center in January. Liberty Property Trust is a 20 percent owner
in the project and the tower's developer. Comcast owns 80 percent.
Foster & Partners of London is the architect for a
"vertical stacked campus" that seeks to replicate suburban-style
offices in a high-rise. Thornton Tomasetti, one of the world's leading firms
for developing skyscrapers, designed the structural engineering for the new
tower from its Philadelphia office.
The building will be 59 stories tall, or 1,121 feet, and
topped by a 222-room luxury hotel.
"Rain or shine, we're pouring concrete," said
Fran Pietrini, president of B. Pietrini & Sons, of King of Prussia, the
concrete contractor for the $1.2 billion project.
"Once we start the pour, we have to make sure it is
in a fluid state. You can't let it [the concrete] get hard, so it needs to be a
continuous motion."
A crew of 40 to 50 workers will pump the 4,000 cubic
yards of concrete into the foundation and smooth it, removing inconsistencies
and potential weaknesses. Contractors say wet concrete is not to be layered
onto dry concrete.
Prep work will begin at the construction site at midnight
Friday and the concrete pouring will begin at 2 a.m. The 1800 block of Arch
Street is expected to be closed for the duration of the concrete pour. That
stretch is planned to reopen at 5 p.m. Saturday, officials said.
SJA Construction, of Philadelphia, and Action Supply Co.,
of Sharon Hill, will supply the concrete, and B. Pietrini will operate four
pumpers to deliver the concrete to the foundation mat.
To make sure there won't be an interruption in the flow
of concrete to the site, SJA and Action Supply will produce the concrete in
plants in South Philadelphia and Port Richmond and two in Sharon Hill,
officials said.
There will be 50 concrete trucks making the 400
deliveries, with about two-thirds of the trucks coming down Arch Street and the
other third approaching the construction site by 19th Street. At any given
moment there should be about six concrete trucks emptying their loads.
B. Pietrini, which has 14 concrete pumpers, including a
new one for the tower's construction, will have an extra pumper at the
construction site on Saturday for an emergency.
If all goes smoothly, the concrete pour could be done in
less than 10 to 12 hours, Pietrini said.
"This is a dream job we got," he said.
"It's a very big pour."
BY THE NUMBERS
The new Comcast tower will be 59 stories tall. Building
the foundation mat for the structure will involve:
400 Truckloads of concrete.
10’ Thickness in feet of foundation mat.
15 Million pound foundation mat.
Source: Philly.com
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