Chris McCune

Building Statistics

General Building
Data

• Building Name: Eight Tower Bridge
• Building Location and Site: 161 Washington Street
______________________Conshohocken, Pennsylvania 19428
______________________Montgomery County
• Builiding Tenants: Multiple • Occupancy and Function: High-Rise Office Building
• Size (Total Sq. Ft.): 345,000 Sq. Ft.
• Stories Above Grade: Sixteen
• Total Height Above Grade: 214 feet
• Primary Project Team:
_______• Owner/Developer: Oliver Tyrone Pulver Corporation
_______________________Brandywine Reality Trust
_______• Architect: Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, LLP
_________________website: www.som.com
_______• Structural Engineers: Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, LLP
_________________website: www.som.com
_______• MEP Engineers: Jaros, Baum & Bolles
_________________website: www.jbb.com
_______• General Contractor: R.M. Shoemaker Company
_________________website: www.rmshoemaker.com
_______• Steel Erection Company: Samuel Grossi & Sons
_________________website: www.grossisteel.com
_______• Civil/Municiple Consultants: Robert E. Blue, Consulting Engineers, P.C.
_______• Financial Partners: Union Labor Life Insurance Company
• Dates of Construction:
_______• Planned: February 2001-April 2002
_______• Ground Breaking: February 12th, 2001
• Estimated Cost:
_______• Building Cost: $43,000,000
_______• Associated Project: Detached seven story parking garage (319,000 sq. ft.)

Project Information

Area Information:

Eight Tower Bridge may be one of the latest projects undertaken by Oliver Tyrone Pulver Corporation, but it is far from the first. In fact, Eight Tower Bridge is the sixth of seven buildings constructed by the same company in the Conshohocken area. Over the past fifteen years, the Tower Bridge project has transformed a former run-down industrial town into one of the most desirable office, commercial, and retail riverfront properties in the suburban Philadelphia area.

Conshohocken was founded by William Penn in 1683. The town grew steadily along the banks of the Schuylkill River.; the desirable waterfront location was, and still is the principle attraction of the town. The choice location eventually saw the growth of an extensive transportation infrastructure, which in turn brought a surge in industrialization. Through most of the 1800’s and 1900’s the area became known as “Irontown”, but as the century progressed, steel and ironwork demand began to slow. By 1985, the town was blighted.

In order to re-claim the attractive riverfront property, Pennsylvania declared Conshohocken as an “Enterprise Zone” in 1987, offering financial incentives to companies who decided to develop and relocate to the area. Since then, the most notable transformation of the area has been the Tower Bridge Project. This $400 million dollar undertaking has created nearly 1.2 million square feet of office, commercial and retail space, including seven Tower Bridge buildings, a Marriot Hotel and a Residence Inn, bringing back economic prosperity back to the Conshohocken area.

Architecture:

Eight Tower Bridge stands directly on the riverfront next to the Fayette Street Bridge, leading to the I-76 and I-476 interchange and all regional destinations. Developers deemed that this prime corner location was deserving of an exceptional office building. As such, the sixteen story Eight Tower Bridge would be modeled off the original One Tower Bridge which stands just across the Schuylkill River. Tenants of Eight Tower Bridge can enjoy scenic riverfront views, and the ever expanding downtown area. Tenants on the sixteenth floor are graced with the luxury of working atop the tallest building in Montgomery County.

Eight Tower Bridge has been designed in order to blend with the surrounding buildings of the Tower Bridge Project, yet stand out from them. The buildings of the Tower Bridge Project are designed to look clean cut and professional, but most of them do not match the size and scale of Eight Tower Bridge. The precast concrete panels combined with a stone trim and green tinted ribbon glass windows create a simple elegance and sense of professionalism desired by businesses when searching for office space.

Eight Tower Bridge features a three story open-air lobby which serves as the main entrance point from both the parking area in front of the building, as well as the from the 48 parking spots located within the building at lobby level. This lobby features marble walls and floors, polished stainless steel doors, and wood-paneled elevator doors.

Zoning:

The downtown Conshohocken area was previously zoned as commercial and light industrial. However, the state of Pennsylvania zoned the area as an "Enterprise Zone", essentially requesting for the development of commercial space in order referbish the area. Eight Tower Bridge is located in space classified as "Class A Commercial".

Building Superstructure:

The steel superstructure of Eight Tower Bridge is supported by a foundation system consisting of reinforced normal weight concrete pile caps supported by auger-cast reinforced concrete piles. These 16” auger–cast piles have been designed for a service load capacity of 100 tons. The core of the building is supported by a reinforced concrete mat foundation, supported by additional auger-cast piles. The entire building is supported by a total of 328 piles. Reinforced concrete grade beams connect all of the pile caps, as well as the interior core mat foundation.

The lobby level consists of a 5” concrete slab-on-grade reinforced with one layer of 4x4 welded wire fabric. The slab sits over a loose granular fill, which sits over compacted subgrade soil. The inner core slab-on-grade is similar, but is cast 8” thick and has two layers of welded wire fabric as reinforcement.

The typical beam size in the floor system of Eight Tower Bridge is W18x40 spanning 44'4" at 9'4" on center. These floor beams have been designed with an upward camber. The floor beams support a typical floor slab of 5-1/4” thick with 3-1/4” 4000psi light-weight concrete over non-cellular 2” deep metal deck. There are floor slab variations in the mechanical spaces on each floor of Eight Tower Bridge.

The steel superstructure is made up of lateral braced frames organized around the building core and extending through the roof to the top of the mechanical penthouse located on the roof the of building. Additionally, moment resisting frames are located around the perimeter of the building. All structural steel is specified as ASTM A992 grade. Beam-to-column and beam-to-girder connections are typically simple shear connections. Beam-to-column connections in the moment resisting frames are fully welded moment connections, or as an alternate, have bolted end-plate moment resisting connections.

Transportation and Egress:

Eight Tower Bridge is equiped with five high-speed passenger elevators and one frieght service elevator located at the core of the building with service to all 16 floors. Additionally, two stair towers can be found within the center core of the building on either side of the elevator shafts.