It takes a gigantic piece of machinery to lift up to 178,000 pounds of slab concrete and move it like a playing card in a 39-card deck.
The Ness & Campbell hydraulic crane that this week is piercing the sky on Camas’ Lake Road, just east of Union High School, is that monster piece of equipment. The 600-ton crane is lifting 39 concrete tilt-up panels to frame a three-floor commercial building in just a few days. Many other Clark County tilt-up concrete buildings have been built using hydraulic lifts, but the crane at the new Dwyer Creek Business Center is “the largest one I’ve ever seen,” said Matt Olson, president of Robertson & Olson Construction Co. in Camas, the project’s contractor.
Olson was on hand Tuesday to watch the work, which his company was video photographing for a future YouTube time-lapse posting. Olson and his wife, Tina, and local investors Steve and Jan Oliva are developers of the estimated $8 million building.
Workers from Robertson & Olson and subcontractor Concrete Alternatives began the raising of the walls Monday, and by day’s end about half of the exterior frame was in place. About two dozen workers were back at it early Tuesday morning, adding an internal wall and then moving to the rear of the building. Chad LeDoux, project superintendent for Roberston & Olson, hoped to have the final tilt-up panels lifted into place by the end of today’s workday. There’s plenty of incentive to work quickly: the crane rental comes to $38 per minute of use, LeDoux estimates.
Lifting the giant walls is an impressive but not particularly complicated task. First, the crane inches into place and sets its stabilizing pier pads. Workers then hook cables anchors onto anchors on the tilt panel. The crane operator tightens up the cables and begins the lift. Up comes the top of the wall, lifting away from the building’s perimeter. The men, looking smaller as the wall rises, pull back and lift the anchored support braces that will hold up the wall until the building’s roof is in place. The upright wall is then lifted from the ground and guided by men and machine into its final position for anchoring.
The movement of the giant slabs of concrete has impressed people both inside and outside the construction industry, LeDoux said. “There’s always a certain amount of interest when the panels go up,” he said. “There’s a shock and awe.”
While tilt-up construction is common for industrial and warehouse buildings, the nearly 85,000 square-foot building at the new Dwyer Creek Business Center doesn’t fit the usual tilt-up mold. For starters, it contains three floors — including a ground floor, or basement that will be used as an indoor firing range, and two upper levels. That means the panels are unusually large, as much as 45 feet in height and 33 feet in width.
Also, the building will contain retail and office space, uncommon uses for tilt-up concrete buildings, LeDoux said. It will have plenty of exterior wood trim and other aesthetic amenities — LeDoux calls those touches “candy” — that will give it a handsome appearance as an office or retail space. Its west side offices will have a view of a small adjacent lake.
To motorists who pass the site daily on Lake Road, the building may seem to be appearing out of nowhere.
But what they might not have noticed was the site preparation in tough soil conditions and the 25 days of concrete pours to create the building slab and concrete walls, LeDoux said. But they would be right in thinking the project is moving quickly. Because of this winter’s mild weather, construction is two months ahead of schedule.
There’s plenty of work still to be done. On Tuesday, while walls were popping up, the construction site was humming as truckers delivered steel girders and roofing materials.
“I’m ready to go up on the roof,” LeDoux said. “I’m always thinking ahead to the next thing.”
