A Community Refocuses: Metal panels modernize Detroit’s public safety headquarters

by Jonathan McGaha | November 30, 2014 12:00 am

Some creative thinking and colorful metal panels turned a 400,000-square-foot casino in Detroit into a state-of-the-art public safety administration building. Originally an office for the Internal Revenue Service
(IRS) before being used as a temporary casino by MGM Grand, the City of Detroit purchased the building and began refurbishing it in spring 2012.

Completed in 2013, the $60 million Detroit Public Safety Headquarters is the central administration facility for the City of Detroit’s police, fire and homeland security departments. Expected to achieve LEED Gold, the updated facility houses offices for the Detroit Building Authority and City of Detroit Information Technology Departments, as well as a forensics laboratory for the State of Michigan, and is home to approximately 700 employees.

The project was very involved and a team-centric process driven by a close partnership between the Detroit Building Authority, Detroit architect SmithGroupJJR, and Detroit-based White-Turner, the construction manager, according to Bill Ash, AIA, LEED AP, principal at SmithGroupJJR. The building occupants formed a core team of constituents that worked together to help shape the vision for the new building.

 

Dramatic Changes

During early visioning sessions, Ash says it was clear that the city wanted to dramatically change the building aesthetics. The original building was fortress-like, solid and nearly windowless, which was more appropriate for its former owners of the IRS and casino. “It was important for the city that this new iteration appear modern, bright, open and accessible-both to build a cohesive, morale-building work environment for the dedicated individuals to reside within, and as a gesture to the public that the facility is not a fortification but a hub of public safety that belongs to and is a beacon within the community it serves,” he says.

A great deal of effort was made to add windows and light, while peeling away ineffective materials and replace them with modern, efficient and effective cladding. To expose views to and from the building, add clean edges and lines, and introduce color, Ash explains it was important to remove the building’s clutter, decoration and unnecessary appendages like the outdated 500-car parking deck.

According to Ash, much of the existing exterior cladding was uninsulated, had failing insulation, or was simply failing as a cladding system. “It was imperative that the new building have a highly effective thermal envelope that contributed to our sustainability goals,” he adds. “The insulated metal panel allowed us to use a product that created a new weather barrier and provided continuous thermal insulation outside of the framing. Because schedule and time of installation was also an issue, it was beneficial to be able to provide the air and vapor barriers, thermal barrier and finished cladding product essentially all within one system.”

 

Color Coordinated

Once the original building skin was removed, more than 90,000 square feet of insulated metal panels from Metl-Span, Lewisville, Texas, were installed. Most panels were installed on the existing framing, but some areas required additional framing. “Insulated metal panels were chosen because of their ease of installation, how quick it goes up,” says Eric Reid, metal operations estimator and project manager with the installer, CEI Group LLC, Howell, Mich. “It acts as an air and vapor barrier and is aesthetically pleasing.”

The project required almost 51,000 square feet of horizontal 2-inch CFA panels in widths of 32, 36 and 40 inches in custom Submarine Gray, and just more than 40,000 square feet of vertical 2-inch CFA panels in widths of 24 and 36 inches in custom Key Largo, Tarryton and Sweet Nothings. Minneapolis-based Valspar supplied its Fluropon coatings for the custom blue and green shades. The building’s unique color design creates a mosaic of intertwining colors, with the large, vertical panels providing depth and movement between the blue-green shade variations, while the vertical panels provide balance to the horizontal metal panels by picking up on the gray and beige tones of the building’s surrounding environment.

“Metl-Span specified Valspar Fluropon coatings to provide outstanding resistance to ultraviolet rays, long-term color retention, and resistance to dirt and stains,” says Jeff Alexander, vice president of sales for coil and extrusion at Valspar. “With this protection against weathering, aging and pollution, the City of Detroit’s new Public Safety Headquarters will maintain the distinctive lasting impression.”

While CEI Group has worked extensively with Metl-Span products, Reid notes that this was by far the largest project his crew has worked on. While crew members were installing panels from a hoist lowered from the roof, a separate hoist was bringing panels to the crews.

Additionally, Reid notes that it was a unique install because of the different sized panels. “We had to make sure we installed the right size and right color panel in the right spot,” he explains. “There are multiple areas where there are different size and different color panels.”

The resulting layout of the metal panels is in response to the building’s existing subframing orientation and the desire to span long distances with whole panels, explains Ash. “Much of the building is a neutral gray, blending well with the surrounding neighbors-an array of beiges, tans, grays and browns,” he says. “The exact color of the bolder blue-green panels was not as important as the fact that they were a bold color at all. The intention was that the façades not be non-descript or unremarkable, but that there be a deliberate representation that Public Safety was engaging in some way with its surroundings, that it be noticed, visible and recognizable.”

 

Scheduling and Budget

The project’s demanding schedule and tight budget required decisions to be made quickly and cooperatively with the end goal of delivering a high-quality building for the City of Detroit and a national model for public safety service integration. “Given the age and condition of the building, this means the design and construction teams were in the building early, identifying systems, structures and assemblies that could be reused and those that were at the end of their useful lives,” Ash explains. “Three-dimensional laser scanning of complex interior spaces was used during design and preconstruction to clarify existing conditions and develop accurate costs; building information modeling (BIM) was used to coordinate disciplines and inform construction; a design-assist approach was used for key design and engineering elements to integrate certain subcontractors earlier in the process and eliminate a transitional step between design and construction.”

In this way, Ash says the team was able to quickly address conditions as they arose without hindering progress-unforeseen conditions that might halt or delay a typical renovation project of this scale, such as the hundreds of undocumented holes that were discovered in various casino floors and had to be structurally patched; insulation that had been compromised and settled to point of having no thermal value; a maze of existing ductwork that had to be sorted, simplified and reused.

Detroit Public Safety Headquarters, Detroit

Owner: City of Detroit Building Authority
Architect: SmithGroupJJR[1], Detroit
General contractor: Joint venture between Turner Construction[2], Detroit, and White Construction[3], Detroit
Installer: CEI Group LLC[4], Howell, Mich.
Coating: Valspar, Minneapolis, www.valsparcoilextrusion.com[5]
Metal wall panels: Metl-Span, Lewisville, Texas, www.metlspan.com[6]
Curtainwall/storefront windows/metal spandrel panels: Universal Glass & Metals Inc., Detroit, www.brinkergroup.com[7]

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Source URL: https://www.metalarchitecture.com/articles/a-community-refocuses/

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