UPDATE – December 8th, 2017

WE ARE ALMOST THERE – Residents on the upper floors, thanks for your continued resilience!

We know the continued noise – some drilling and hammering, is driving you crazy. Sadly, some of the change order work for flashing on the screen wall and upper penthouse has been plagued by bad weather and timing. If we can get a few days of good weather, they will be finished by this upcoming Friday the 15th.

In the cover photo – work is being finished up along the very top of the screen wall. One of the change orders was to cap this area with metal flashing, rather than just apply an adhesive membrane. This is due to conditions the contractor and engineers found while work was underway.

Working along this wall, with pieces of sheet metal, is obviously a very wind sensitive task. But we were also told there is a shortage of works with the skill to do this work. Those two facts have resulted in delaying buttoning up this location. But they believe the forecast and worker availability will be in our favor over the next week so they can finish this last bit of work.

After that time, the contractor will demobilize and if all goes well, their last day will be Wednesday December 20th. And they leave us with is an excellent example of owners reserve dollars at work, maintaining the structural integrity of the building – a roof, with up to code insulation and a membrane which should protect the top of the tower and residences for at least a couple decades:

Original Post:

We are very pleased to report our new roof anchorage systems received formal certification from Wiss Janney & Elstner, our engineers on the roof project.

Also known as a “Fall Arrest” or “Fall Protection” system, the purpose of this was to address changes in OSHA requirements for the safety of workers and equipment hanging from the building. Formal certification by a licensed engineering firm is now required in order for us to conduct simple tasks such as window washing, and any future exterior repairs to the windows, curtain wall or sealants. We received the formal certification documentation on Friday November 18th. (It has already been submitted to our window washers, so they know they are all set at Park Tower!)

Perhaps most important though, this certification provides some professional assurance that our infrastructure is safe for workers and equipment, by meeting or exceeding the necessary standards to be certified.

Below are examples of the new anchorage locations, which workers will use to tie off to the building when they need to descend down the curtain wall:

POST ANCHOR:

WALL ANCHORS:

CORNER I-BEAM ANCHOR:

Below, a worker tests the integrity and capacity of one of the Post Anchor locations:

The certification report from WJE specified that ALL anchor locations exceeded the standards of weight bearing and stress capacity necessary to be certified.

Now, if the weather will cooperate, we can get the windows washed!