KVM 55 Key to Placement on Tight Site

In an effort to consolidate Internal Revenue Service operations and revitalize the business district in Kansas City, MO, state officials approved a $370 million redevelopment, renovation, construction and relocation of several of the downtown area’s facilities. General contractor J.E. Dunn, part of J.E. Dunn Group, Kansas City, invested in their own equipment to pump and place an estimated 50,000 of the 84,000 total yards of concrete into the project. The expertise of local pumping contractor/dealer Brundage Bone aided in J.E. Dunn’s selection of a KVM 55 boom pump to meet the project’s requirements.

The relocation plan calls for the redevelopment of the 70-year old Main Post Office building in order to house approximately 6,000 I.R.S. workers transplanted from seven buildings surrounding the downtown area. J.E. Dunn heads up work on the 620,000-square foot 3-story concrete frame, post-tensioned slab building. This project alone includes total replacement of the electrical and mechanical systems, installation of five freight elevators, one passenger elevator, unloading area, seismic upgrades, and construction of 100,000 square foot office space with kitchen and cafeteria. Also in the plans is a 300-space above grade parking garage to accommodate employees working in the renovated post office.

In addition, crews are progressing on construction of three adjacent office annexes to the west of the Old Main Post Office site. Six tower cranes – two per building, service the site. A 3800-car below grade parking garage is already in place below the facility site.

Positioned immediately side by side, the three buildings are joined at grade level by hallways surrounding two outdoor courtyards measuring 45 feet wide. As contractors pulled out the blueprint, concrete placement into the 580-foot by 780-foot structure seemed a near impossible task.

Joined by J.E. Dunn Board of Director members and other job site personnel, Project Superintendent Tom Turner sat down with representatives from Schwing dealer and pumping contractor Brundage Bone.

“We were prepared for the worst,” says Turner. “We’d been trying to discern how it would be possible to complete deck pours on the buildings after the precast walls had gone in. We discussed separate placing booms, extensive line systems – we were struggling to find a way that was effective and economical for us and the customer.”

Sales representative Mike Lothamer, operating from Brundage Bone’s Kansas City location, provided the solution: Eliminate installation of the hallway’s precast walls from the immediate plans. This left the 45-foot wide courtyards available for crawler cranes, pump access and set up.

“It was a minor epiphany,” says Turner with a smile. “Once we nailed it down as a practical option, we recognized a 55-meter boom could get the job done.”

Discussion surrounding the features of the KVM 55 concrete boom pump was next on the agenda. “There were two major components that proved the KVM 55 was the way to go,” says Turner. “The reach and output capabilities matched our requirements. Maneuverability and compact outrigger spread was an absolute necessity for access and set up in the courtyards. This pump had the potential to provide all of that and more.”

Before the company took delivery of the boom pump in September 2004, long-time J.E. Dunn operator Ernie Endsley was given a taste of the pump’s performance doing ride-alongs with employees operating and maintaining Brundage Bone’s pumping fleet.

Equipped with a Generation III 2525H-5 pump kit, all-hydraulic operation and Rock Valve, the KVM 55 has the ability to pump flat-out at maximum boom reach smoothly and continuously to meet all of the project’s requirements. A compact 32’-2” outrigger spread allows Endsley to utilize the boom to its full extent in the job site’s tightest set-up areas.

Endsley and the new pump poured their first yard of concrete the first week in October, and have been working 12-hour days ever since.

“The pump comes onto this site around 6:30 in the morning every day,” says Turner. “He usually completes 350 to 450-yard elevated slab pours in the mornings and moves on to slab on grade work in the afternoons. He doesn’t roll out of here until 6:30 in the evening sometimes.”

Kansas City Director of Warehouse Operations Flo Rothbrust reported that by February 1, the KVM 55 had pumped and placed a total 13,200 yards of concrete into the office buildings and other structures within the project scope.

The project also includes an adjacent four-level, 1500-car parking garage atop the surface lot west of Union Station. The parking lot will accommodate the 250 Postal Service employees relocating from the old Main Post Office to the existing Adams Railway Express building as well as surrounding businesses. With the KVM 55 leading the charge, J.E. Dunn pumping crews are placing between 250 and 450 yards each day.

Project Superintendent Turner estimates ready mix suppliers LaFarge North America and Fordyce Concrete Company, Inc., are supplying six different mix designs for work on the project’s structures. For slab on grade pours, the trucks supply the KVM 55 with fiber-reinforced concrete. “There’s no wire mesh being used to reinforce these slabs,” says Turner. “It took some discussion between our selves and the ready mix supplier, but we did come up with an already reinforced mix that is completely pumpable.”

For elevated slabs within the parking garages, the pump is supplied a dense concrete containing silica fume. The mix prevents salt from automobile travel and other corrosive materials from seeping into the concrete and destroying the rebar.

“There haven’t been any hang ups when it comes to the pump,” says Turner. “We were at peak production in December. We pumped around 10,000 yards of concrete into these projects. It’s an odd month to be experiencing those kinds of numbers, but the pump just keeps humming through the weather, through everything.”

Final completion on all aspects of the project is estimated for January 2007.