Combining the old with the new

By Clair Urbain

How Gibbs Construction is changing the face of New Orleans’ French Quarter . . . without changing its look.

The French Quarter in New Orleans has one of the most distinctive personalities of any neighborhood in the United States. Steeped in tradition and trademarked by centuries-old architecture, the keepers of the city’s culture aim to preserve its look and feel yet allow the city to revitalize its downtown area.

Host of Super Bowl XXXVI and international trade shows that draw tens of thousands of visitors to the city, hotel space is at a premium. Developers must work closely with the Vieux Carré (pronounced voo ca-ray) Commission to assure any development does not detract from the quaint, distinctive look of this historic district. Strict rules govern renovation and replacement efforts.

Gibbs Construction, a design-build commercial contractor with deep roots in the New Orleans area, is working closely with developers, architects and the Vieux Carré Commission to add more than 700 rooms to the city’s hotel capacity.

The fast-track $60 million Bourbon and Canal Hotel project, owned by the Decatur Hotel Corporation, is transforming the very northwest corner of the French Quarter into two hotel properties. The 512-room Astor Crown Plaza features ballrooms, meeting rooms, restaurant and convention facilities and recreational areas. The Alexa, a four-star, 192-room boutique hotel that adjoins the Astor, features upscale accommodations. Both properties literally envelop centuries-old buildings, preserved for their architectural style.

Gibbs Construction is no stranger to renovation work, says Melissa Gibbs, who helps her father, Lawrence, the company founder and president, operate the commercial contracting firm. “My father started this business in a spare bedroom in our home 25 years ago with $3,000. The company has grown from there to $120 million in revenue in 2001,” she says. Many of their projects have been in the French Quarter and in otherhistoric areas of the city.

The firm employs about 260 full-time people. It completes most layout and rough vertical forming work, followed up by finish work at the end of the project. “We look at the job, then match the best labor to the job. That could be our own people or subcontractors we work with,” she says.

Special challenges
Working in the French Quarter presents special challenges. Once the design and engineering work passes the muster of the Vieux Carré Commission, working around centuries-old buildings in tight quarters can make even easy jobs difficult.

To maintain the look and feel of the French Quarter, several buildings around the hotel complex were saved. Although the Woolworth store on the site was demolished, the façade of the Imperial Shoe Store building at the corner of Canal and Bourbon Streets, as well as the first floor of a variety of buildings on Canal Street, had to be saved. Businesses in many of those buildings stayed open throughout the construction process, requiring Gibbs to work closely with them to maintain dry space as construction continued above them, says Danny Femal, senior superintendent on the jobsite.

“We started demolition of the old Woolworth building right after Mardi Gras in 2001,” says Femal. “We had an eight-day turnaround to get the foundation in for the 16-floor section of the Astor hotel because it involved working around a Krystal’s restaurant on the jobsite. This section of the hotel was literally built over the restaurant, with a steel structure bearing the weight of the hotel over the top of it,” he says.

From day one, work space on the site has been tight. “We have only 100' of access on the front and back of the site. On the front, it was only 20' wide, and on the back, it was 12' wide. This building was built on the sidewalk,” he says. Using Primavera job-scheduling software, the construction team coordinated deliveries to assure supplies would be on time as workers needed them.

“We found that no matter what time of day it is in the French Quarter, you have crowds and at some times of the day they are harder to deal with. We found that 4 a.m. was the time to start pouring concrete,” he says. Gibbs hired off-duty New Orleans police plus three traffic coordinators to maintain traffic flow.

With a tight jobsite, the Gibbs team needed to find a way to get concrete where it was needed on the construction site. A hardline and spider combination commonly used for larger pours was impractical. A crane and bucket was first used to pour small mezzanine jobs, but wasn’t fast enough. “Instead, we used a crane and placing boom to pump concrete for high-volume pours,” says Femal.

Working with Cajun Concrete Services, the local concrete pumping company, workers used a 36-meter detachable boom that could be mounted on one of two towers on the site. “We were able to get 75 to 80 cu. yds. poured per hour and poured 14,000 sq. ft. per week at the beginning of the project. When we reached the eighth level, the floors were more typical, so we achieved 20,000 sq. ft. per week from that point on” he says.

The detachable boom allowed the pump truck to be positioned in the tight quarters below, then pumped the mix up to the work level. From there, workers used a remote control to position the boom and make the pour.

“We would pour the slab in the morning and the columns in the afternoon. Decking would be placed and six days later we would be ready to pour the next floor,” he says.

Ballrooms needed special concrete
Constructing the ballroom in the middle of existing buildings required innovative engineering that used post-tensioned concrete.

“The ballrooms on the second level required clear spans, but had to support a portion of the 16 floors of hotel rooms above the ballrooms. “To accomplish that, we needed to build seven transfer girders that are really 36" x 178" concrete beams,” says Femal. “The post-tensioned beams are 75' long and made up of 130 cu. yds. of Agilia cement. This is a hydraulic concrete with 11.5" of slump. It is self-compacting and achieves 5,000 psi in 36 hours. We wanted concrete mix that would get strong fast because we wanted to stress the cables as soon as possible so we could remove the forms to reduce congestion on the jobsite,” Femal says. “The Agilia  cement is amazing. It solved our problems,” he adds.

Exterior building challenges
Laying brick to complete the new portion of the Astor Crown Plaza required bricklayers to work from hydraulically powered scaffold jacks that hung from the top of the building. “We had to stage the brick work over the top of the present buildings. We thought it would affect the bricklayers’ productivity, but it didn’t. The key was keeping bricks and mortar fed to the layers,” he says.

On sections of the buildings that had to blend in with adjacent historic buildings, 1 1/2"-thick glass fiber-reinforced concrete panels were used as cladding. “It’s a thin panel of pre-cast concrete that is mounted to a steel frame. The forms can be manipulated to match the decorative look of the area. It allows us to build arches, round windows and other architectural designs needed to blend in with the surrounding buildings,” he says.

Getting more interior space
To maximize the number of hotel rooms that could be built in the Alexa hotel, building designers came up with a light well that cuts through four of the old buildings facing Bourbon Street. Although the first floor remained relatively untouched, workers cut out a section of the roof and portions of the second through fourth floors of these buildings to create a light well. This allowed interior rooms to have exterior windows. On the back portion of these buildings, two additional floors of hotel rooms were added. “We were able to proceed with minimal water damage during construction,” Femal says.

To get ahead of finish work, Femal’s crews staged the job so work on the Astor lobby could proceed ahead of other job segments.

“Keeping that part of the building dry was a challenge because it is located adjacent to the Imperial Shoe Store building. It is six stories tall, and was completely gutted for renovation. We added 16 openings in this six-story, load-bearing building without bringing the building down,” he says.

“Finishing the lobby while building construction continued helped assure us it would be totally done for the “soft” opening scheduled for the end of February, 2002 and grand opening the end of March,” he says. These are key dates because that month of limited operation will help us get the life and safety systems fully operational and it will allow the staff to get familiar with how the building operates,” he concludes.

Published in the March/April 2002 issue of Contractor Tools and Supplies magazine.

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