This 31,735-sf, seven-story building was originally opened as 'The Indiana' in 1888–1899 and was designed by New York architect Neville & Bagge in the Renaissance Revival style, with a brick and stone façade and an elegant front entrance. In more recent years, the building was known as Park 79, an extended stay, single room occupancy hotel, which was closed in 2015.
The original terracotta flat arch floors are supported by steel beams and reinforced with steel tie rods. The beams bear on perimeter brick bearing walls and on interior steel beams and cast-iron columns and brick walls surrounding a lightwell. The structure was deteriorated, and the integrity of the arches was partially compromised during previous remodeling projects. The extensive structural work included restoring the structural integrity of the slabs and facade rehabilitation, new stairs and elevator with bulkheads, new openings in slabs and exterior walls, floor infills.
DCI also provided temporary shoring design and sequence of demolition and construction, as well as structural steel shop drawings and connection design.
Creating a building brings together a lot of people with different backgrounds who may not otherwise have anything to do with each other. As an engineer you get to interact with all these people, sometimes in the same day, and, ideally, you should be able to communicate effectively with all of them; and, let’s be honest, we didn’t go to engineering school because we were amazing communicators.
While there’s something to gleaning technical knowledge and insight from your engineering peers, there’s a wealth of diverse experiences, personalities and perspectives that come out of all the people and trades involved in putting together ‘their’ building.”
