CREJ

/ BUILDING DIALOGUE / MARCH 2017

let’s look at water flowing, something like that. It’s got to have

some curves to it, it can’t be square.”

“We knew that the building was going to stand out from

the rest of the neighborhood by its sheer height,” says Gro-

matzky. “What we wanted to do was generate a shape to

the building that began to move and have some motion as

you went around it. It’s a really flowing shape. The building

changes from every angle. It has a fluidity. It will never look

the same from any area whatsoever.”

According to Gromatzky, some of the inspiration for the

design also came from the zoning lines that were established

years earlier.

“I think the actual lines of demarcation that cut across the

site began to dictate the shape of the tower. And then when

we saw the outboard diagrams we simply shaped some soft

curves within those spaces to soften the tower shape and the

tower itself began to resemble the beginning of a soft flower

unfolding.”

Ground was broken in late November 2014 and Ray Suppa

suggested PMRG host a Native American blessing, something

he had done in the past. Given the site’s historic significance,

Nail agreed and Benito Concha, a Taos Pueblo medicine man,

performed a blessing ceremony at the ground breaking.

“This land has always been a crossroads for indigenous

people,” says Concha. “Since our ancestors passed through

this area and camped here, I thought it was important to

perform this ceremony.”

At the ceremony, Concha presented Nail and his teamwith

a cedar bough, a symbol for purity and cleansing to be kept

until the building is finished. That cedar bough still sits in

Nail’s office on-site.

Concha said that when the building is completed and peo-

ple are moving in, Nail and his team are to “place the bough

in the river to return it to nature.”

According to Nail, Concha was back at the topping out in

December and will be in attendance for the grand opening

later this year.

Construction Must Go With The Flow

With design nailed down and the project blessed, PMRG

turned to longtime partner Clark Construction to tackle the

many challenges and bring the vision to life. Some of the

challenges were par for the urban infill course, like staging,

phasing, keeping the neighbors happy and keeping the park

open during construction. Some were more challenging.

“I think the interesting logistical challenge is that we're

sandwiched between the confluence of these two rivers,” says

David Trolian, senior vice president for Clark. “We went down

three to four levels below grade adjacent to the river with a

secant pile foundation system. It was extremely challenging

because there were enormous head pressures of ground wa-

ter on the those walls.”

Another challenge Clark faced was the layout of a high-

rise next to a low-rise. Due to forecasted differential settle-

ment issues, they were forced to leave a pour strip around

the high-rise and leave it separated from the low-rise until