Project Overview

Berglund Construction was hired by JPMorgan Chase Bank in 2011 to make extensive structural steel, concrete and recoating repairs at the company’s iconic “Chase Tower” in Chicago’s Loop. Five cooling towers sit on top of the structure’s roof at 850 feet above the ground. Each cooling tower’s steel columns are supported by concrete basins that run north-south on either side. The steel columns on the north and south sides – five on either end – of each cooling tower are supported by concrete beams. The enclosure walls include concrete-encased structural steel framing with masonry infill.

Berglund Construction’s concrete repair team was tasked with repairing delaminated concrete along all of the concrete-encased basins, columns and beams throughout all five cooling towers. The tower’s house maintenance scaffold rig runs on tracks located around the entire building perimeter, including on top of the penthouses. These tracks are supported by concrete pads approximately every 10 feet on the roof. Many of these pads contained failing concrete that required replacement. In addition, extensive steel repairs were required to the steel columns that support the track. Berglund Construction’s team removed the steel tracks at the roof to access the pads. The damaged pads were demolished and replaced with new concrete.

Finally, Berglund’s team prepared and coated all existing exposed steel members at the roof level with an industrial Tnemec coating system. This included the cooling tower structures, railings, ladders, and house stage rails, supports, and components. The steel preparation required SSPC-SP 10/NACE No. 2 Near White blast-cleaning all steel surfaces.

Due to the project logistics and abatement of lead-based paints, full-containment enclosures were engineered and erected. The building required a minimum of three cooling towers to be in operation at a given a time. The full containment enclosure allowed a controlled environment to apply steel filler, primer and final paint coating in a high quality manner.