Industry Axis

While construction continues as essential business in most states, Needham DBS has concerns that the construction services supply chain is being disrupted. As leading indicators to construction activity, the Architectural and Engineering services sector must keep the pipeline filled with new and active design to prevent downturns in the second and third quarter construction projects. There’s a tremendous amount of fear in the country and the next few weeks will only add to that anxiety as many of the hot spot areas around the country reach closer to their peak. Experts say that those areas may not start to see relief until the third week in April and much of the country may not be back to work until early June.

Needham DBS has been busy working through the backlog of projects that were lined up going into the COVID-19 pandemic. The approach is to work through that backlog as quickly as possible to free up opportunities that require “speed to market” resources, either services or materials. Architects and Engineers should be procuring new work to keep the pipeline primed but many new projects aren’t kicking off due to owner uncertainty or restrictions in commercial real estate lending.

Needham DBS has been operating in a mostly “business as usual” manner through the COVID-19 pandemic but the reality is, things will not be “business as usual” for some time. As the President tries to wrangle the explosion of new cases and the impacts on the economy, drastic measures may be required to mitigate those risks. State and local government leaders took the message from the President seriously and have imposed restrictions on schools and businesses keeping the spread of the virus from escalating locally. Needham DBS has been closely monitoring the situation and is ready to stand with the President, Governors, and local leaders to make the adjustments necessary to protect the safety and health of our employees as well as our communities.

We are not aware of major disruptions at this time but given the day to day changes, it’s best to be prepared. Schedules may be impacted as we transition to at-home work environments to curb community spread. For material supply projects, there are potential delays and disruptions in our vendor supply chain due to plant closures, we have already been put on alert by most manufacturers.

Needham DBS attends Hard Hat Tour.

Engineers and Architects were invited to attend the CPG Hard Hat Tour at Loews Kansas City Hotel on May 8, 2019.  The hotel, under construction at 1511 Baltimore, is a $325 M, 24-story, Post-Tensioned Concrete structure.  Todd Brewood, Sean Wonderlich and Jeremy Stech attended the tour, learned about the processes and logistics of post-tensioned slabs and got some great views of the city.  A special thanks to CPG, SEAKM and JE Dunn for the opportunity.

#buildwithstrength   

Domino Park - Photo Courtesy Jeanie Abbett

Not everyone sees an intricate jumbling of steel as a beautiful mess, but I do.

As we grind through engineering and drawings with computers assisting us every step of the way, we become disconnected. Construction schedules are so fast that we step on site and see steel progressing so rapidly, worried about the milestone dates, we don’t step back to observe the achievements and the sheer beauty of the steel.  

Project Dylan

Project Dylan is a new prototype fulfillment center for Amazon. The warehouse building has an approx. footprint of 700,000 SF slab on grade and another 1.95 million SF of elevated deck. The exterior is clad with 330,000 SF of full height composite insulated tilt-up panels. The panels are non-load bearing for gravity but as a VE alternate on the project, the panels do carry large shear forces for seismic loading.  

With the tallest panel standing at 81’-1” tall, Concrete Strategies (CSI) set a company record for the tallest tilt-up panel ever erected on a project and an industry record for the tallest composite panel ever constructed. This was accomplished utilizing an innovative composite panel design by Needham DBS.  Meadow Burke introduced the Super 62 which was used on this project.  The composite panel industry is on the frontier of emerging design technologies, the innovation is ripe to propel our industry in to the future.

Engineering News Record, ENR, Magazine spotlights Project Dylan, currently under construction in Tulsa, Oklahoma. 

Link to the article E-Commerce Logistics Test Limits of Tilt-Up Construction.  

Sean Wonderlich passes the Fall 2018 NCEES Principles of Practice of Engineering (PE) Exam. The PE civil/structural exam is a civil breadth and a structural depth examination. The breadth exam contains questions from all five areas of civil engineering. The depth exams focus more closely on a single area of practice in civil engineering. Examinees work all questions in the morning session and all questions in the afternoon module they have chosen. The exam is an 8-hour open-book exam. It contains 40 multiple-choice questions in the 4-hour AM session, and 40 multiple-choice questions in the 4-hour PM session.

Needham DBS appreciates the effort put forth by employees who invest their time and effort to take the exam. Congratulations Sean!

Jeffrey Needham, Needham DBS, sponsored by the Concrete Promotional Group (CPG), presented "Composite Tilt-Up Panels - The Future of Tilt-Up Walls" to the AIA Nooniversity held on October 10, 2018.  The presentation explores the current state-of-the-art in composite tilt-up panel construction and explains developments in design methods for tilt-up composite panels.  The difference between solid panel design and the two-wythe composite design will be illustrated and the limitations of the current composite design methods will be shown.  The future of composite panels in tilt-up construction concludes the talk. 

Thanks to Christy Martin, Executive Director for CPG, and the Kansas City AIA for the opportunity.

What could make a 72'-6" panel more complicated?  The introduction of a new product.  The iconX composite connectors for insulated panels brought a lot of questions from the tilt-up subcontractor and the general contractor. The project is complex and the panels are very large.  Therefore, the decision to build a mock-up panel was worth its weight in gold.

Prior to the pour, the contractor got hands-on with the iconX composite connector and insulation to develop a marking and handling system to make the project run smoothly. The contractor then studied the sequencing of embeds, welded wire reinforcing mats, miscellaneous rebar placement, iconX connector and insulation installation, concrete placement and finishing and lifting/bracing hardware placement.  

As part of your building maintenance plan, Needham DBS recommends developing a Severe Snow Plan to limit the impacts on your structure.  The plan should contain a list of contacts:  owner, building manager, local testing agencies, building engineer of record, local consulting engineers.  It's a good idea to establish an "on call" local testing agency and local engineer since travel from other regions may be difficult during an event.  The plan should list the design snow load for the building, the snow density used, the depth of the balanced snow load and what drift regions were included in the design with magnitude of load.  

Determine the Potential for Loss based on the following high risk factors:  Large Open Space Roof, Flat or Low Slope Roof, Parapet Projections, Tower Projections, Internal Roof Drains.  Any of these increase risk of failure during a severe event, a combination of these increases the risk further.

Olathe West High School project was selected for the Judges Award at the Concrete Promotional Group Excellence in Concrete 2017 Awards. The award was presented to the team at the CPG Holiday Party & Awards Banquet on November 7, 2017 held at the College Basketball Experience at the Sprint Arena.

Tilt Up Concrete was designed and detailed by Needham DBS. Lithko Contracting LLC was the Tilt Up Contractor for the project. Other team members who worked on the project were Hollis + Miller Architects, McCownGordon Construction, Musselman & Hall Contractors, Summit Concrete, Fodyce Concrete Co Inc., Penny’s Concrete and Braun Intertec.

The two Wichita State University Mixed Use Retail buildings are under construction near the intersection of 21st Street and North Oliver in Wichita KS.

Needham DBS designed the project as a design/build fast track project for Crossland Construction. Needham DBS was awarded the steel package on July 27, 2017 as the design drawings were nearing completion. Anchor Bolts were on site August 7, Joist and Deck were delivered to the site on September 8 and the remainder of the primary steel arrived September 18, 2017. Sunshades were delayed about a month but allowed the primary steel erection to be completed and stud work started before the sunshades were installed.

Olathe West High School has been awarded a Tilt-Up Achievement Award from the Tilt-Up Concrete Association (TCA). TCA Members Needham DBS and Lithko Contracting were presented with a plaque commemorating the achievement at the Tilt-Up Awards Gala during the 2017 TCA Convention in Miami, Florida on September 29, 2017.

The Awards Issue of the Tilt-Up Today will be available in January 2018 featuring all the amazing projects from the 27th Annual Tilt-Up Achievement Awards.

The Northland Christian School administration organized an Open House for staff, parents and students to visit their new school, currently under construction. The administration offered time slots on September 18th, 19th and 21st to tour the construction site. Teachers showed off their future classroom areas, students enjoyed seeing the construction equipment and building materials. Taking their first walk down the corridors and entering in to their classrooms in a construction environment is a different experience. We hope that students are inspired by the rawness of the building and seek a future in Construction, Architecture or Engineering.

The school will open with 400 students from Pre-K to 12th grade. In order to reduce the amount of money the school will need to finance, they are currently fundraising to provide furniture and items needed for each classroom. Sign up to sponsor a room or purchase a desk on the Northland Christian website.  http://www.northlandchristianed.com/newbuilding

The TCA announed today that the Tilt-Up Convention & Expo in Miami will continue as scheduled.  The hotel and convention center in Miami suffered some landscape damage but otherwise withstood the sustained winds and storm surge from Hurricane Irma.  The Miami airport is reopening today and travel will be back to normal by the time of the convention.  The convention will begin on Thursday, September 28.

Jeff Needham will be presenting "Structural Design of Composite Tilt-Up Panels" on Saturday, September 30.  

This year has been tough for our projects in the hurricane regions.  The strength and durability of tilt up construction in strong sustained winds and projectiles has performed very well.

Tampa Premium Outlets closed on Saturday, September 9 in preparation of Hurricane Irma and reopened on Tuesday, September 12. "Due to weather conditions, individual retailers will determine if they will open. With thousands of Floridians without power, the center is open to the community, offering people a place to visit, take advantage of dining options and amenities, charge their phones or just take a break from the overwhelming events that have taken place because of Hurricane Irma."

Orlando Vineland Premium Outlets closed on Saturday, September 9 in preparation of Hurricane Irma and reopened on Tuesday, September 12.  "Due to weather conditions, individual retailers will determine if they will open. With thousands of Floridians without power, the center is open to the community, offering people a place to visit, take advantage of dining options and amenities, charge their phones or just take a break from the overwhelming events that have taken place because of Hurricane Irma."  

Needham DBS delivered joist and deck to a project site in Wichita Kansas just 6 weeks from award of the steel contract. Although this feat seems routine to our firm, the realization that this is nearly impossible to achieve otherwise is definitely something to brag about.

Needham DBS has long standing relationships with joist vendors and has working knowledge of the detailing requirements for the projects. With the experienced staff at Needham DBS, the joist and deck erection drawings and detailed cut lists are created by our own staff in house. The detailing tends to be the bottleneck for the joist manufacturers especially when approval drawings go out and don’t come back in a timely window. If plant schedules allow room for projects to get in to production on short notice, Needham DBS can provide the list and slip right in to the schedule.

The Tanger Outlets located in Texas City TX closed at 5 pm on Friday August 25 as Hurricane Harvey was developing into a Category 4 Hurricane with sustained winds up to 130 mph.  The store reopened September 1 with special store hours.  Many retailers remain closed due to staffing conditions but power and services are available.  

Needham DBS designed the project in 2011 for 130 mph winds and used tilt up concrete panel construction.  Prior to Hurricane Harvey making landfall, Needham was in concact with the Architect and Tanger Site Manager to discuss necessary precautions related to the storm.  The roof was designed to a higher level of uplift that code with Factory Mutual Global Risk wind parameters at perimeters and corners to keep the roof in tact.  The tilt up wall panels perform extremely well in sustained winds and are durable for projectiles so the design team was not concerned about the structure itself.  Testing and maintaining scuppers and overflow scuppers for high intensity rainfall projections was key.  The site received an estimated 37 inches of rain.

Houston Premium Outlets located in Cypress TX, on the NW corner of the outer loop closed at 1 pm on August 26th as Hurricane Harvey makes landfall and remained closed until noon on Friday August 31st however many of the retailers remain closed until they feel it’s appropriate for their employees. The shopping center has opened to provide residents a place to visit with electricity, restaurants and others services.  

Our heart goes out to all the residents of Houston and the surrounding communities that have endured so much over the last week.  Prayers for helping hands and gracious hearts as the cleanup process begins.