Situated on the banks
of Rock River and surrounded by Native American burial mounds, Wisconsin’s
Beloit College is a private liberal arts college with 1,275 undergraduate
students. Founded in 1846, the college is celebrating its 175-year anniversary
this month, remaining the oldest continuously operating college in Wisconsin.
During 2018-20, a new,
seven-story central campus gathering space called The Powerhouse was created by
transforming the century-old, decommissioned Blackhawk Generating Station into
a 120,000-square-foot building that combines student union, health, recreation,
fitness and athletics facilities. Selected for its previous experience working
with Beloit College, Corporate Contractors Inc., Beloit, managed the project
and installed the new roof systems.
“Corporate Contractors
has worked with Beloit College in the past, including serving as the general
contractor for the college’s Hendricks Center for the Arts,” says Homer Auge,
roofing project manager for Corporate Contractors. “We are deeply committed to
our hometown of Beloit and are actively involved in the community. Our company
has a long history of participating in projects that have enhanced the economic
health and quality of life in Beloit. We also have extensive experience with
adaptive reuse projects, so when Beloit College began planning The Powerhouse,
we were excited to be a part of it.”
About The Powerhouse
The Powerhouse
provides Beloit College students a central gathering space for the first time
in 30 years and is the first campus building along the river. It combines
student life and recreational facilities, connects the campus to the community
and pays homage to the city’s history.
The Blackhawk
Generating Station was a fixture in Beloit for more than 100 years. Wisconsin
Power and Light Co., now part of Alliant Energy,® began
constructing the original red brick building in 1907. By 1925, the building had
been expanded four times. To meet growing demand for electricity following
World War II, a cream-colored brick addition was erected in two phases between
1945-46 and 1948-49. The power plant remained operational until 2009, and
decommissioning was completed in 2010.
Soon thereafter, the
college’s president, Scott Bierman, had an idea to turn the building into a
one-of-a-kind recreational center. Although portions of the building needed
significant restoration, including the roof systems, the steel-frame brick
structure was sound.
A partnership between
Beloit College, Alliant Energy and the City of Beloit was formed. About $28
million in private donations were raised for the project, and $10 million in
state and federal historical preservation and new market tax credits were secured.
Because the Blackhawk
Generating Station was added to the National Register of Historic Places in
2017 and the rehabilitation project received state and federal historical
preservation tax incentives, the products and construction techniques used to
create The Powerhouse had to reflect those used when each section of the
building originally was constructed.
Building The
Powerhouse
The Corporate
Contractors team began working on the project in July 2018. The Powerhouse is a
combination of existing and new construction structures.
Unit 1 was completed
in 1913 and has a roof area of about 10,500 square feet on a wood plank deck.
Unit 2 was built in
1927 and has a roof area of about 4,500 square feet on a concrete roof deck.
Units 3 and 4 were
built in the 1940s and have a total floor space of 96,000 square feet and a
total roof size of about 22,500 square feet. The portion above the original
turbine hall had a roof deck made of precast concrete panels, and the remaining
area had a concrete roof deck. Unit 3 also features a 100-foot-tall smokestack.
The fieldhouse was
built in 2020 and has a roof area of 17,000 square feet on an 18-gauge Type N
metal roof deck.
Before working on the
roof areas, the Corporate Contractors team set up a flagging system and
installed temporary guardrails over coping caps.
“In most areas, the
parapet walls were high enough that additional safety precautions were not
needed,” Auge says. “Where parapet walls were shorter and harnesses were
necessary to ensure crew safety, the team took great care in placing the
anchors to protect the finished wall faces on the historical building.”
Tear-off
The crew used roof
cutters and tear-off tools to remove the existing 38,347 square feet of
built-up roofing and then loaded the debris on a crane to remove it from the
rooftops. The Corporate Contractors team worked right behind the demolition
team, installing new roofing materials on sections as they became available.
“Even after the
primary work on a section was complete, we would return to the job site as
needed to flash around penetrations for HVAC equipment, exhaust stacks, conduit
and line sets,” Auge explains.
The existing wood roof
deck on Unit 1 was badly deteriorated, so workers replaced it with a Vulcraft® 22-gauge
steel deck. Considerable tuckpointing also was required to address structural
issues on the brick parapet walls. Given the building’s historical status, the
concrete caps had to be replaced with new ones that matched. The caps were
procured and installed by Statz Restoration and Engineering Co. Inc., Menomonee
Falls, Wis.
The concrete and
precast concrete roof decks on Units 2, 3 and 4 were retained. However, the
decks ranged between 60 and 90 years old. The precast concrete panels on Units
3 and 4, where the power plant’s turbines were located, required significant
repairs. The Corporate Contractors crew fully restored these areas to original
specifications.
New roof systems
Next, workers applied
two layers of 3-inch-thick Mule-Hide Poly ISO Flat insulation to achieve an
R-value of 34.8. To ensure positive drainage in certain areas, workers applied
Mule-Hide Poly ISO Tapered insulation following a taper schedule created by the
Tapered Solutions team at ABC Supply Co. Inc., Beloit.
When choosing the type
of new roof systems to install, the college’s project managers called on the
Corporate Contractors team for help.
“The building is
complicated,” says Daniel Schooff, chief of staff and college secretary for
Beloit College and project manager for The Powerhouse project. “The power plant
was constructed in four phases spanning 40 years plus we built a
17,000-square-foot addition. We also had some unique requirements related to
historical preservation. We turned to the experts at Corporate Contractors to
recommend the roof systems that would perform best.”
The team selected
white 60-mil-thick TPO membrane for Units 2, 3 and 4. Because the roof on Unit
1 is visible from the ground, the roof’s color needed to match the original
black roof. Accordingly, a black 60-mil-thick EPDM membrane was selected.
Workers fully adhered
the TPO and EPDM membranes to the various roof decks using AeroWeb Low-VOC
Contact Adhesive/Primer.
“With concrete roof
decks on Units 2, 3 and 4, a fully adhered system was the right approach,” Auge
says.
Skylight
Although the
building’s iconic 100-foot-tall steel smokestack no longer is operational, it
was preserved as a lasting landmark and a reminder of the building’s history.
Rather than capping the smokestack at the top and bottom, a domed skylight was
installed at the smokestack’s base, giving building occupants a view of the sky
above.
The skylight was
slightly smaller than the opening on the roof deck’s underside, allowing
workers to raise it into place on a curb fabricated by Corporate Contractors
craftsmen who then flashed it with 60-mil-thick EPDM.
The skylight now is a
signature feature of The Stack—a conference and event space ready for large
gatherings such as weddings and campus and community events post-COVID-19. But
for now, it serves as the site for the college’s COVID-19 testing program.
New fieldhouse
The Corporate
Contractors team completed reroofing work on The Powerhouse’s original
structures in January 2020. In May 2020, the crew began work on the fieldhouse.
Workers placed two
layers of 3-inch-thick Mule-Hide Poly ISO Flat insulation over the roof deck
and then adhered 60-mil-thick TPO membrane using AeroWeb Low-VOC Contact
Adhesive/Primer. To trim the roof system and exterior walls, workers used
24-gauge clear anodized metal.
Challenges
Because of
insufficient on-site storage space, materials were delivered in five stages:
one for each unit plus the fieldhouse. Accessing the roof areas five stories
above ground was challenging because Rock River was on the building’s west side
and vehicular traffic was on the east side.
For most roof
sections, workers used cranes to load materials and remove debris. For a
section on the building’s west side along the river, workers were able to
transport materials into the building. Then, they used a Lull 10K-54
Telehandler to lift materials to the roof and remove debris through an old
window.
Workers accessed the
rooftops using a variety of scaffolding and lift equipment including boom
lifts, scissor lifts, swing-stage scaffolding on the river-facing side and a
Vanguard Hydro-Mobile Mast-Climbing Platform on the street-facing side.
During the power
plant’s decommissioning process, the plant was gutted, eliminating access to
the roof from inside the building. To overcome this obstacle, the crew used
silo ladders and scissor lifts outside the building to ascend to the lowest
elevation and then used ladders to move to and from the higher elevations.
“With 10 elevations
spanning from 40 feet to 95 feet above ground, it was a time-consuming and
physical challenge,” Auge says.
Powering ahead
By August 2020, the
Corporate Contractors team installed 44,000 square feet of TPO membrane and
10,500 square feet of EPDM on The Powerhouse. Thanks to the team’s dedication
to historically preserving the structure while restoring the roof systems, the
decommissioned power plant was successfully transformed into a riverside gem
that serves as a central hub of campus life at Beloit College and a vibrant
gathering space for the entire Beloit community.
In 2018, The
Powerhouse project was selected as the overall winner of the World Architecture
Festival, which honors future projects that identify key ecological and
societal challenges that architects are actively seeking to address during the
next decade. Among the features of The Powerhouse are radiant panels integrated
into building surfaces that harness energy from the adjacent river’s water to
meet much of the building’s heating and cooling needs, minimizing energy
consumption and costs while also enhancing occupant comfort and maximizing air
quality.
“This building is a
prominent fixture in town,” Auge says. “It’s right on Rock River and on the
main drag. It had been vacant for years. Bringing it back to life was a great
reward.”
Chrystine Elle Hanus is Professional Roofing’s associate editor and an NRCA director
of communications.
Project name: The Powerhouse
at Beloit College
Project location: Beloit, Wis.
Project duration: July 2018-August 2020
Roof system types: EPDM and TPO membrane
Roofing contractor: Corporate Contractors Inc., Beloit, Wis.
Roofing manufacturers:Mule-Hide Products Co. Inc., Beloit; Vulcraft,® a
division of Nucor® Corp., Charlotte, N.C.
The Powerhouse
features include:
- 10,000-square-foot fitness
center
- 17,000-square-foot O’Neill
Fieldhouse with artificial turf
- Three-lane indoor running and
walking track
- Robert G. Nichols Natatorium
with an eight-lane competitive pool
- Weissberg Auditorium, a
160-seat lecture hall and theater
- Hamiltons Café
- Recreation room and arcade
- The Stack conference and event
space
- Health and wellness center
- “Hub” spaces for campus
organizations
- Collaborative meeting rooms,
seminar rooms and worktables
- Gathering areas, nooks and
“hang-out” spaces
- Outdoor decks overlooking Rock
River and a new Riverwalk
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