New Building Rises Above Bayside

Since last May, motorists traveling around Portland along Interstate 295 have been watching the progress of a new building under construction on Marginal Way, which is changing the landscape of the Bayside area. In response to a State of Maine Request for Proposal, 161 Marginal Way, LLC of Portland proposed the new building, a four-story, 54,000 square foot facility. The design proposal teamed Allied/Cook Construction, CWS Architects and Becker Structural Engineers (BSE) as the building’s project team. Mechanical and Electrical Systems were provided on a design-build basis.

Based on the proposal requirements, each floor of the facility was required to support a design load of 150 psf in order to provide flexibility in future uses and to accommodate file storage at any location within the building. This load is approximately twice the typical office design load. Given the size and load requirements of the building, a pile supported, braced steel frame building was selected by BSE as the most cost-effective structure. The subsurface conditions of the site consisted of approximately 50 ft of soft silty clay overlying bedrock. A total of 103 Steel H piles, each with 110 tons of capacity, were driven to support the building. The superstructure utilizes composite steel beams and girders at each floor. This framing system provides an exceptional strength/weight ratio and is well suited to the high floor loads. Lateral bracing to resist wind and seismic loads uses diagonal "chevron" tube braces, hidden within the center core walls. The entire structure is designed to accommodate the addition of another floor above the current roof level.

During construction, BSE was responsible for implementation and administration of the Special Inspections program required by the BOCA Building Code. All construction pertaining to the structural system was subject to material tests and on-site reviews by BSE engineers, resulting in an exceptional quality assurance program and a very successful project.