FIRST STREET CULTURAL CAMPUS
Only 1 way to go: Up
8-level garage then 2 towers will fill big hole on South Tryon
Since early 2006, construction crews have been digging down, down,
down on South Tryon Street between First and Stonewall streets.
Neighbors in the uptown towers feel the rumbles from the blasting,
and motorists wait in traffic for the all clear signal.
Now at 80 feet deep, they're finally ready to start building upward.
In about three weeks, The Next Big Thing at the Wachovia First
Street Cultural Campus will be tower cranes, arriving just in time for the
heavy lifting.
The first structure will be an eight-level, 2,250-space underground
parking garage. That will be followed by a 48-story office tower, a
42-story condo tower and public arts facilities.
The first nine stories of the 48-story tower will appear to move
slowly because at heights of 20 feet, they're almost twice the size of a
typical office building floor.
After that, crews will pour a floor every four days, said Chuck
Gaston, Batson-Cook Co.'s project superintendent.
The tower is expected to reach its peak in October 2008, and bank
employees are to start moving in by June 2009. All the buildings should be
occupied by December 2009.
Gaston said the initial crane will be on the Tryon Street side. Five
more will follow, including one across Tryon.
For a closer look, he drove me and videographer Peter Weinberger down a
15 percent rock-and-soil slope used by construction vehicles.
• The first thing you notice at the
bottom: big rocks, little rocks, piled rocks.
The noise generated by backhoes, construction equipment and trucks
becomes mind numbing after a few minutes.
Blasting is down to about one shot a day.
Gaston said it takes about eight hours to drill holes, layer explosives
and cover the blast site with loose rock, soil and a tamping blanket to
prevent flying stone and debris.
All workers clear the hole before a shot.
Construction crews began the excavation last May. Gaston said the rock
removed so far is "99.9 percent granite" occasionally streaked
with a veins of quartz and pyrite.
Sorry, treasure hunters. No gold.
The center city was honeycombed with mining tunnels during Charlotte's
early 1800s gold rush days, and rumors of potential jackpots accompany
every major excavation.
The biggest discovery at the Wachovia dig, Gaston said, was a golf-ball
size lump of pyrite, better known as fool's gold.
The worker who found it has a souvenir.
• The next thing you notice down in
the hole: What happened to the skyline? From there, you see only the tops
of three South Tryon skyscrapers peeking over.
At this level you're mainly eyeball to eyeball with the shored-up sides
of the hole.
Not to worry, Gaston says.
The excavation is held in place by steel pilings, steel rods anchored
into the rock, steel plates and wire mesh to contain loose rock.
This far below the surface, rising water is a major concern. Without 40
de-watering wells installed around the site and a sump pit at the bottom,
workers would be swimming.
Gaston said crews are pushing now to complete a tunnel under Tryon at
Stonewall.
Workers widened Tryon by six feet and dug underneath at the start of
the project to build a support system for existing underground wiring and
utility lines.
Now, they're digging deeper to create a two-level entry ramp to the
project's underground parking garage.
The lower level of the ramp will be for trucks to reach loading docks.
The upper level, for cars entering the parking garage.
Gaston said construction vehicles will begin using the tunnel as soon
as its finished.
They'll close the existing construction entrance and blast away
remaining rock near the Church Street side of the site.
The number of workers on the site will grow from about 60 today to
roughly 400 when the structures start rising.
Don't discard the earplugs yet.
Gaston estimates the remaining granite will take about three more
months to remove.
The Hole
• Batson-Cook Co.'s crews have dug
down 80 feet and are almost ready to start the foundation for an
eight-level underground parking garage.
• The depth will be slightly greater
-- about 95 feet -- in one spot where recovery tanks will be installed to
meet "green"-building requirements for the 48-story tower.
• During the excavation, workers
have removed 340,000 cubic yards of rock and soil -- about 47,000 dump
truck loads. It will take 60,000 loads to finish the job.
• Soil is going to the airport for
runway construction and to waste services company BFI in Concord for
recycling if it shows signs of contamination. Rock is going to a Martin
Marietta quarry to be crushed and reused.
• Since excavation started in May,
construction crews have used 565,000 pounds of explosives to break the
rock.
• Most of the rock removed has been
granite with veins of pyrite and quartz.
• No gold was found -- only fool's
gold and a few broken bottles buried in the debris.
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