Owner: Packard Building LLC/Barrentos LLC
General Contractor: Marpac Construction LLC
Architect: Laura Cooper, Johnson Architecture and Planning
Engineers: James E. Coughlin, Coughlin Porter Lundeen
and Bush, Roed & Hitchings, Inc.
President: Stephen E. Marvich
Senior Project Manager: JP Wittman
Superintendent: Steven Miller
ABC members involved in this project:
Pacific Fire and Security, Inc.
Platt Electric Supply
Prestige Communications, Inc.
The Packard Building, a mixed-use, design/build project on Capitol Hill in Seattle, has seven levels, consisting of 56 apartment units, 4,600-square-feet of office space and 5,000- square-feet of retail space, a parking garage and a rooftop garden. The project entailed retaining the historical north and west façades of the original 1911 building, more recently known to locals as the Foley Sign Company.
Routing the slab on grade and pressure treated deck piping around the temporary steel that supported the historic façade, until the new structural components and upper floor levels were in place, proved challenging. S.M.E., Inc. of Seattle did make practical use of the façade to support overhead conduits for the temporary 480 volt service, which proved to be out of the way of future construction activities.
Just prior to the rough-in of the 2nd level post-tensioned deck, the owners were still considering changing the intended use of the second floor, from living units to office space. To maintain some flexibility, S.M.E. proposed a plan that would facilitate either type of occupancy, and maintained the construction schedule. In the end, the space was used for offices with all electrical provisions being used.
The owner’s original budget required that S.M.E. find ENERGY STAR® fixtures that were available with a short lead time. Doing this provided an additional benefit to the owner by also meeting guidelines of the Seattle City Light Built Smart program– with savings estimated at more than 44,000 kWh/year for the building.
Placing the large electrical service gear and the un-fused service conduits travelling through the building was complicated by the fact that the electrical room was one level up from the in-building Seattle City Light vault, and one level below the residential units. S.M.E. concealed the un-fused service conduits in the parking garage with a concrete encasement similar to the structural columns. Its location between parking stalls did not impact or delete a parking space. Designing the physical layout of the 360-square-foot electrical room for the 2500amp switchboard, 68 meters, house and lighting control panels, standby service and communication backboards was tricky and required incorporating code clearances and conflicts from exposed plumbing lines serving the living units above. The result is an attractive, safe and functional electrical room.
There were no recordable injuries during the 19,884.50 hours worked on the project.