Between 705 & 1200 SQ/FT The Garage at The Place in The Valley (Garage Condo 45x23x20)

Greg_STL · Feb 27, 2016

Re: Garage Condo 45x23

Our condo is located in the center building. It does not get an exterior wall with a window so they have not set up any forms on it yet.

The red outline is basically our condo. The building is 90' across and we get the near 45' section. The perspective really makes it look like the other side is smaller but the saw cuts make 6 equal sized slab sections and the red outline shows the 3 that go with our side. The blue outline will be a 12' wide by 14' tall single garage door and the green line is where the steel person size door will be located.

Greg_STL · Mar 5, 2016

Re: Garage Condo 45x23

I stopped by after the Cars&Coffee this morning and they were working on the condos. I took a couple pictures from the road but didn't want to bother the workers.

It looks like all the steel is completed on the larger U-shaped building. I was hoping they were going to pour yesterday or today.

On the close-ups, you can see the yellow spacers. I believe these will be removed after pouring and the remaining steel loops will be used to lift and "tilt" the walls. There are also steel strips that I think are going to be insets in the concrete to attach the steel roof trusses.

There is work going on with the center building but it was difficult to tell what at the distance I took the photo. These should be the first wall forms with the big garage door openings.

Greg_STL · Mar 6, 2016

Re: Garage Condo 45x23

The very end unit will be an office/clubhouse. It will have the brick veneer that the perimeter walls will not have. They have located that brick veneer in the forms prior to pouring.

The center building does not have the perimeter walls but has garage doors on both "sides" because it is two units deep. The forms for the garage door walls have been started on the center building. The pic here is of my unit. You can also see that they have pulled the boards off for the basic slab forms.

JohnK007 · Mar 6, 2016

Re: Garage Condo 45x23

You're doing a great job documenting this for us Greg. I have never seen walls constructed this way and find this process really interesting. Looking forward to following your progress. Keep up the good work!

Greg_STL · Mar 6, 2016

Re: Garage Condo 45x23

@JohnK007 Thanks! It is a type of construction I've never had personal experience with either although I think it is quite common in commercial construction. I enjoy watching, seeing the pieces go together and guessing what is next. I hope they will pour some of these walls this week. But now that they are starting forms in the center building, I could see them getting all the forms on all the buildings completed and then doing one massive pour.

Thought I post a couple pics of why we are buying the condo. These photos were taken in September at the Porsche HPDE event at Gateway. My wife is driving the 09 Porsche 997.2 C4S and I have the 13 Audi TTS.

Greg_STL · Mar 7, 2016

Re: Garage Condo 45x23

The first walls have been poured!!! The pictures are not mine but from the condo's Facebook page. It appears the main U-shaped building had all of its outer perimeter walls poured. It is hard to tell from this picture but I do not believe the center building had its walls poured. That should be almost half the walls - all at once!

I can see the square openings for the windows but I cannot see many of the smaller features. I do not see the yellow covers on steel loops that I think will be used to tilt the walls or the reinforcements that looked like attach points for the roof trusses.

west_perf · Mar 7, 2016

Re: Garage Condo 45x23

Very interesting build it's going to be a neat project. We used to live by there and remember what that area looked like in the flood of 1993, hope that never happens again.

Greg_STL · Mar 7, 2016

Re: Garage Condo 45x23

The '93 flood breached the 100 yr levy and put about 8 feet of water where this is being built. They raised the 100 year levy to a 500 year levy height after that event and added a number of pump stations. As a result the entire Chesterfield valley has become a commercial and shopping area. The crazy part is that with a 500 year levy, people are not even required to have flood insurance.

I was here for the '93 flood and there was lots of warning before the levy gave out. We live 10 minutes away and can temporary park cars up at the house (not in a flood zone) for a few weeks if the water gets high. That is also one of the reasons I want a 12' tall balcony in my space. Cars move out and small expensive stuff moves up high. It would still be a mess but one I could recover from.

Greg_STL · Mar 12, 2016

Re: Garage Condo 45x23

The condos continue to make progress. They knocked the boards off the wall forms for most of the u-shaped building. In the second image you can see the small nails and nylon lines where the boards were nailed to the slab. The third and fourth images show where four steel loops have been dug out for each wall to be able to lift and tilt the walls. The last photo shows that the boards between the walls have not been pulled out yet. I'm a little surprised at how much debris was present from pulling off the forms. All that wood looked like it was single use and just getting piled up to throw away.

Greg_STL · Mar 12, 2016

Re: Garage Condo 45x23

The center building (where our unit will be located) is getting it's wall forms built. The forms look to be deeper - maybe because with all the door openings that the remaining wall needs to be thicker to carry the loads. These walls with the garage doors in them all get the brick veneer. There is a photo below that shows the trays that the bricks a placed in to make sure the spacing is correct.

With the standard spacing between doors, they are pre-fabbing the steel reinforcement to drop in. Lots of other steel re-inforcements to hook up to the slabs and roof trusses too.

Greg_STL · Mar 13, 2016

Re: Garage Condo 45x23

I was lucky enough to participate in a STL Porsche Club (PCA) garage tour event this last weekend. The tour took us to three members' garages in sequence for a quick open house at each. Given we are in the process of building our own garage, it seemed like the perfect chance to get some ideas.

The first garage was a 100 year old 2 bay garage that was expanded with a four bay next to it by the current owner. The owner had a newer 991 911, and older aircooled 911 and a 235i. The garage was very organized, and sported a nice mid-rise lift.

The second home had a rather unique setup. The house originally had a 6 car garage in it's basement with a separate 1 car space next to it separated by a utility area. The current owner expanded the house and added another 2 car garage and linked up the original 6 and 1 bay garages. The owner has 4 Corvettes (62, 65, 67, and 68), a Ferarri F430, a fried-egg Porsche Turbo Cabriolet, and a Hellcat daily ... plus multiple motorcycles. The owner was nice enough to fire up the 62 Vette and F430 to let us listen to the engines.

The last house was newly built with a four bay garage. One of the garages was set up with a high lift garage door, jackshaft door opener and lift. The lift had a single bridge jack to allow wheel service. The owners said that the garage has never gotten below 50 degrees inside without heat due to the insulation and with the two heaters it could be brought up to 65 in 15 minutes. They are long time Lotus owners and also own a newer Cayman. I didn't get the full story, but the sculpture in the last photo was what was left over from water cutting track outlines out of a sheet of metal. Can you name the tracks?

I took away that the Porsche club was full of people that love cars. All the garage owners owned multiple car brands and their Porsches were not even their most prized vehicles. It was a really fun event. I hope that we could have something worthy of sharing by next year but I'm not sure we would be ready.....

jay8s · Mar 13, 2016

Re: Garage Condo 45x23

I know that first garage, its in U-city. He did a lot with the BMW club also. I am going to be out by your condo this week, and am looking forward to swinging by to see it for myself.

Greg_STL · Mar 15, 2016

Re: Garage Condo 45x23

Look what got delivered today. I believe these adjustable metal poles will be used to support the walls as they are erected.

The center building appears to have all of its re-bar work completed. The first picture is of our unit. You can still see all the brick veneer under the re-bar. The second picture shows some nice nesting of the garage doors to fit more forms on the slab. The third picture shows that someone ordered a wider door for their unit. I believe one condo owner bought back-to-back units in the center building to allow them to drive thru with a large truck. It might make sense to have wider doors so that they can turn coming out of the unit easier with a long truck/trailer.

Can't wait to see some walls up ....

d.mcfarland · Mar 16, 2016

Re: Garage Condo 45x23

This is sweet. I'd like to see one of these type of buildings in the Pittsburgh area.

356vintage · Mar 16, 2016

Re: Garage Condo 45x23

Massive walls to be lifted. Looking forward to seeing the crane.
Thanks for sharing your project with us!

kesslerbmw · Mar 16, 2016

Re: Garage Condo 45x23

Great thread, thanks for sharing those other garages as well. Love the old garage that was added onto. Sub'ed

west_perf · Mar 16, 2016

Re: Garage Condo 45x23

The Porsche club meet looked pretty cool - I'll check to see if there is anything like that in this area.

We will be up in town in June so I'll definitely stop by and see how the construction is going then.

Did you ever find out what kind of release agent they use to separate the poured walls from the existing slabs?

Greg_STL · Mar 16, 2016

Re: Garage Condo 45x23

@west_perf - As far as I can tell, there is no release agent. The concrete doesn't stick to the wood and apparently does not stick to the cured concrete either.

Greg_STL · Mar 16, 2016

Re: Garage Condo 45x23

The center building had its concrete walls poured today! (Picture from condo facebook page). I did a quick drive by this evening but just took some photos from the road - so no close ups of this pour.

They also prepped all the U-shaped building walls to be tilted starting tomorrow.

The adjustable poles appear to be bolted to the concrete. Looking at the pre-poured photos, there does not seem to be any special fitting to which they were bolted or nailed - at least nothing that I can see. It looks like they also cleared the foam out of the recesses where the joists will rest and swept most of the debris off of the walls.

They also set up some sort of pin/socket joint with the pin on the main foundation (first picture) and the socket in the lower wall (second picture). The upper surface you see in the first picture below is the inside of the wall - so when the wall is lifted, the furthest edge of the wall is the side that touches the foundation. The second picture is an older photo but one that I had taken from the opposite side. My guess is this socket takes some of the load to keep the wall from kicking out at the bottom. It could also help getting the spacing correct when the walls are tilted up.

I would really like to watch tomorrow but I have to work ( or I won't be able to afford buying the condo!) I'd really like to know how they seal the wall joint to wall joint. Do they butter the whole joint during the tilt operation or do they just seal the crack from the inside after everything is built?

readhead · Mar 16, 2016

Re: Garage Condo 45x23

There are caulking contractors that will show up with 55 gallon drums of caulk to seal the joints. First they will put a large foam backer rod in the joint.

Blue Seducer · Mar 16, 2016

Re: Garage Condo 45x23

Very nice project. Keep the pics coming. :beer:

Greg_STL · Mar 17, 2016

Re: Garage Condo 45x23

We have walls! (Pic from the condo facebook page)

I stopped by after work. It looks like they got about 8 individual back walls with windows, one small back wall, and one side wall erected today.

The crane was shut down for the night. I'm sure they lowered it all the way because it is only about 250 yards from an active runway.

I took a close up of the wall to show where the metal poles support the wall segment. You can see the truss attach points. There is also a rectangle that is not punched through that I believe is a rain outlet for the roof. These walls are tall! There is supposed to be 20' height to the bottom of the trusses so the walls have to be 25' tall.

In the next picture, the walls for the center building that were poured 3 days ago can be seen.

One last panorama looking from the west side of the complex. It will be cool to take this shot over the next week as the walls get built around the U-shaped main building. By my count, there are about 37 segments around the outside of the U-shaped main building. At the rate of 8-9 per day that should be 4 work days.

jay8s · Mar 18, 2016

Re: Garage Condo 45x23

Just went by your place. Impressive!

I found the second picture to be the interesting part. The crane is parked on the poured walls. The Phillips 66 on the corner is going to get lots of business. Can't wait to see the end result.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Greg_STL · Mar 18, 2016

Re: Garage Condo 45x23

@jay8s: I must have just missed you! I did not stick around long because is was raining. It appears that they had some set-up time that first day because they only did ~10 wall segments the first day but did double that today.

Almost the same picture you took above - just extended. I also took one from the outside of the building (below).

I tried to take the same panorama but I was not standing in the exact same space. It is still cool to compare.

I'm not sure if they are going to work Saturday. If they do, they should be able to finish up the last leg of the main U-shaped building. That would let me see the first wall section with the brick veneer. It also begs the question on how long the concrete needs to cure for center building. It was poured on Monday ... could they tilt those on Saturday??

Bib Overalls · Mar 19, 2016

Re: Garage Condo 45x23

I think this must be the biggest garage ever built with JG oversight. Impressive from every angle.

megalo · Mar 19, 2016

Re: Garage Condo 45x23

Whoa, I totally missed this thread the last few months. Awesome. The bad thing about Phillips 66 is that they often only have 91 octane premium, when nearly all the stations around here carry 93.

BTW, I'm in Creve Coeur.

Greg_STL · Mar 21, 2016

Re: Garage Condo 45x23

More walls went up today - including the one and only wall that is part of my unit.

Picture below from the what will be the back of my unit looking out through the garage door. Convienently, they stopped tilting walls right there today.

Greg_STL · Mar 21, 2016

Re: Garage Condo 45x23

Now for some smaller details:

The socket joint in the wall is not tied to anything yet. What I thought was a pin covered by a rubber cover is apparently just a rubber spacer. I'm not sure what gets bolted on here but I don't think this joint is done yet.

The brick is still covered by the spacing "sheets" - although it was blowing off in the wind this evening. The wood is still stuck in some of the recesses. I'm sure once everything is in place this will get cleared up - but it is not worth worrying about yet.

You can clearly see the gap between the walls in this shot. It looks like almost a 1/2". I think another poster said they would fill this with a foam backer rod and then caulk it to death.

They must of had some issues positioning the garage door walls. The picture below shows the threshold for the person sized door for my unit is beat up a bit. I noticed the other unit had the same issue. I guess they have another 30+ units to get their technique down.

Here is a close up of one of the feet on the support walls. Apparently this is bolted down to the slab with a big-a** bolt. You can also see what the surface of the slab looks like after the wall is lifted off of it. Some of the brick veneer was obviously laid out here.

On the ground, outside the building, were these three small slabs/walls. I think they are going to be a surround for the trash dumpster that sits approximately there.

It looks like there are about 8 slabs to go on the center building. Some of the slabs poured on the center building were actually used on the clubhouse end of the U-shaped building. I think I mentioned in an earlier post something about a larger door. I now think that was part of the clubhouse and not a larger door on a condo unit. I feel like an archaeologist sometimes trying to guess what is going on. I'm only ever there when they are not so my guesses are not always accurate. Take anything I say with a more than a few grains of salt.

They have already started to sweep off the main slab on the U-shaped building to start putting forms down for the garage door walls for that building. I saw some blue chalk lines so I would expect forms to start showing up by the end of the week.

I hope this big picture post will hold you for a couple days. I have to travel for work over the next couple of days. It will be the weekend before I get to take any more pictures.

Greg_STL · Mar 23, 2016

Re: Garage Condo 45x23

My wife took some pics. I'm using tapatalk since I'm traveling. Looks like everything poured is tilted. Also looks like forms are already started on the u shaped bldg.

Greg_STL · Mar 25, 2016

Re: Garage Condo 45x23

Another day, another set of pictures. Are you tired of the pics yet? I took this one from the airport runway side of the building.

And this one looking at the center building from a different angle.

They are bolting the walls down to the foundation. They pre-drill a ~1" dia hole down into the foundation through the metal fittings at a 45 degree angle. Some of the fittings were drilled but not bolted but I couldn't get the holes to show up in the pictures (too dark).

Good progress is being made on the forms for the second set of walls.

They have hooked up the water for an external spigot. I think this was listed as a feature of the condo that there would be external spigots to wash vehicles.

And they appear to have their method down better on the garage door wall tilts. The next several sets of walls showed no damage to the person sized door thresholds.

Greg_STL · Mar 27, 2016

Re: Garage Condo 45x23

My wife and I went down on Easter Sunday to just look around. I was surprised that it looked like they worked yesterday - the Saturday before Easter. They have all the wood wall forms set up for the U-shaped building except the two 45 degree walls in the inside corners. I do not know if they plan on squeezing them in somewhere or if there is something special that will go on with them.

It sure looks like there is a release agent that gets put down by the color differences seen in the photo below. So I looked around at the five gallon buckets that were on site. The first bucket I looked at originally contained jalepeno peppers!! I was laughing pretty hard at that and forgot to snap a picture. That would have been a spicy release agent!! I did find a bucket eventually that might be the release agent (second photo).

While looking in buckets, I also found the 1" dia threaded rod they are using to bolt the bottom of the walls to the foundation. There was also a bucket of bolts that look like the ones that are being used to attach the adjustable support poles. These have a wire insert at the end. It looks like the bolt is slightly tapered at the end so that when torqued down would cause the wire insert to expand and help lock the bolt in the hole.

It looked like they were also setting up an assembly line of to make the steel re-bar sections for the walls. I think the three large u-shaped re-bar sections are just to get the work up off the ground.

So here is a question ... The walls are being bolted to the foundation but they appear to be sitting on these stacks of plastic shims. I can't imagine that those shims are what is going to support the walls long term. Do you think there will be a separate concrete pour on the outside of the wall to that locks the walls in and give a full length support underneat the wall??

readhead · Mar 27, 2016

Re: Garage Condo 45x23

The gaps at the bottom will be filled with non shrink grout.

Chucktown · Mar 31, 2016

Re: Garage Condo 45x23

Awesome. Looks like a fantastic quality build.

Greg_STL · Apr 1, 2016

Re: Garage Condo 45x23

I stopped by tonight and they are making good progress on the second set of walls. The forms, bricks, and rebar looks complete on 2 out of 3 legs of the u-shaped building.

The third leg of the u-shaped building has the forms and bricks completed and they are working on the re-bar.

The center building has the forms set and are working the bricks.

More interesting ... they have started the electrical meters. Obviously, each individual condo unit will get its own meter. The meters for half of the u-shaped building are located on the front wall. It makes for a complicated setup for a building this size.

The center building has 12 units total and the meters for this building are also getting setup.

It looks like there will be a third set of meters on the wall closest to the airport runway. I didn't take a picture because they have not started to install those yet.

I have one last photo. It is a minor thing but they have installed the street light that is on the corner of our building.

Some things that I'm still interested in seeing but have not seen yet:

1. The walls are still sitting on the plastic shims and have not had the grout poured underneath to support the walls. The center building has not had the bolts installed in the lower fittings either. I kinda expected that they would do this sooner than later to stabilize the walls in case there was a strong set of spring storms.

2. By my count, they have forms for all the walls but the two 45 degree walls on the inside corners of the u-shaped building. Are they going to have a third pour for just those two walls or are those walls unique somehow???

Greg_STL · Apr 3, 2016

Re: Garage Condo 45x23

We stopped by this morning to take a look. I guess I was not the only one worried about the bolts not being in on the bottom of the walls. The only thing that I could see for sure that happened from Friday night till Sunday morning was that they bolted the rest of the walls down. It was quite windy yesterday.

I'm not sure if I ever shared a photo of the shims. They appear to be just thin plastic shims that they can adjust quantities to get the wall squared up. I guess it does the job. But, relying on friction through those shims for all of your moment continuity for the bottom of the wall didn't leave me feeling great. Eventually, it will be grouted underneath and there will be concrete slab between buildings that will help lock the walls in at ground level.

Where they are working on the utilities, there is still a small section inside the buildings where there is no slab. I never was there at the right time to see if a vapor barrier was put under the slab. This photo seems to confirm that a vapor barrier is under the slab (blue material).

It also appears that they have run a string through each conduit that goes from the meters into each unit. A small thing but something that needed to happen. It just goes to show that I find something new every time I walk through.

Greg_STL · Apr 4, 2016

Re: Garage Condo 45x23

We have grout under the walls on the large u-shaped building. I co-worker who is a pilot said they measured a 60 mph gust at Spirit over the weekend. I guess we were lucky nothing went down.

One of my other questions was answered as well. They have started layout of the last two walls that fit the 45 degree inside corner walls. The forms have 45 degree beveled ends to the forms.

Everything is looking good for a big pour of the second and final set of walls later in the week or early next week.

And the third set of electric meters are getting started on the wall that borders the airport.

Greg_STL · Apr 7, 2016

Re: Garage Condo 45x23

A quick photo update from the Place facebook page. They appear to have cleaned off the plastic from the walls to reveal the bricks underneath.....

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Homebody · Apr 7, 2016

Re: Garage Condo 45x23

Who woulda thunk it?! They've got airport hangars around here used like that but I never thought I'd see one's built for auto enthusiast's! That's awesome. :willy_nil

Been to Chesterfield a few times to visit Mark Andy for work.

1949 caddyman · Apr 7, 2016

Re: Garage Condo 45x23

Nice shop you will have! How long do the walls cure before they are lifted?

Greg_STL · Apr 7, 2016

Re: Garage Condo 45x23

@1949 caddyman I think on the last set of pours that some walls were tilted after only 5 days.

Between 705 & 1200 SQ/FT The Garage at The Place in The Valley (Garage Condo 45x23x20)

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