Find Posts By Topic

King Street Station Gets Steel Bones

The structural retrofit is still in progress at King Street Station. The new seismic steel installation will help the station withstand future earthquakes. The series of pictures below capture some of the activities that have been taking place.

In this picture below, the interior original columns are being wrapped with thick steel for greater strength. Thus, a new support system is built around the original ones.

Grade beam construction on west side of lobby (Photo by John Stamets)

 

The work to preserve the exterior brick-covered historic columns is quite amazing. Workers need to saw along each side of the columns in order to add the steel so that the original columns are not disturbed. Wooden formwork is erected and holds grout used to infill around new steel.

(Photo by John Stamets)

Plexi-glass window infills on south wall (upper right) throw sunlight across entire lobby. (Photo by John Stamets)

Carpenters build vertical forms for grout columns adjacent to new steel. (Photo by John Stamets)

 

Each new 30 foot long continuous steel column is lifted into place by an “air tugger” connected to a pulley system on the floor above. The steel plating is then welded onto these beams encapsulating the column.

Rig on 3rd floor to hoist steel moment frame on floor below (Photo by John Stamets)

Ironworker operating red winch plays role in hoisting steel moment frame on 2nd floor (Photo by John Stamets)

South wall of lobby – wall plating is lifted into place by an “air tugger” on the floor above (Photo by John Stamets)

 

Watch this video for a peek at this work: