This project consisted of the renovation of an early 20 th-century clothing factory for use as upscale loft apartments. The structure for the 10-story building consists of heavy timber decking and joists supported by steel girders and columns. The exterior walls are brick masonry. The basement is two stories deep, with a large portion of it housing boilers .

One unique aspect of this project involved construction of two levels of parking below the building within the existing two-story-deep basement. Existing heavy timber framing was removed, and large openings were cut in existing brick masonry and stone walls to allow construction of two new concrete parking levels. The lowest level is a slab-on-ground, and the upper level is cast-in-place concrete slab supported by the existing steel columns. The upper slab was designed as a two-way flat plate, which allowed a minimum slab thickness to be used, thus gaining maximum headroom for the parking levels.

The new multi-level ramp required for access to the new parking needed to be squeezed into a very tight site. Extensive temporary shoring and underpinning were necessary to allow construction of new cast-inplace concrete retaining walls and the cast-in-place post-tensioned slabs that formed the ramps. During the assessment phase of the project, we noted that the existing brick masonry façade exhibited extensive cracking, movement and scaling in some areas. Therefore, masonry restoration work, which included replacement, re-pointing and re-anchoring to the steel frame, was part of the project.