One of Downtown’s mega projects is turning its final, in-construction tower into apartments. Metropolis, at Eighth and Francisco streets, comprises four high rises, three of which are finished. The last, a 58-story edifice, planned to house 685 condos, but those units have now been converted to apartments.
By Braden Peter One of the largest and most devastating fires the Petersburg (VA) Fire Rescue and Emergency Services (PFRES) experienced occurred on the morning of January 16, 2018. The structure fire at 424 High Street taxed our firefighters to their breaking point as they faced perhaps the largest fire in the city’s history. The Building The fire started in the old Seward Trunk and Bag Company at 510 High Street and ultimately reached a fifth alarm. This mega manufacturing plant and warehouse, built in 1878, was then the largest building of its type.
In 2014, construction crews began work on one of the region’s most ambitious transportation projects, the $1.75 billion Regional Connector.
Meant to weave together three different rail lines to allow riders to ride from East Los Angeles to Santa Monica, or Long Beach to Azusa without switch trains, the massive 2.1-mile subway project beneath the streets of Downtown will see the construction of three new rail stations, one of which is the Little Tokyo/Arts District Station at First Street and Central Avenue.
Construction has been ongoing at the site for nearly five years, but soon, the community can expect to see a whole new round of work at the 1.2-acre site.
An industrial fire is a type of industrial disaster involving a conflagration which occurs in an industrial setting. Industrial fires often, but not always, occur together with explosions. They are most likely to occur in facilities where there is a lot of flammable material present.
Such material can include petroleum, petroleum products such as petrochemicals, or natural gas. Processing flammable materials such as hydrocarbons in units at high temperature and/or high pressure makes the hazards more severe. Facilities with such combustible material include oil refineries, tank farms, natural gas processing plants, and chemical plants, particularly petrochemical plants. Such facilities often have their own fire departments for firefighting. Sometimes large amounts of dust or powder are vulnerable to combustion and their ignition can cause dust explosions.
The Onni Group plans to replace two buildings at Times Mirror Square with a pair of high-rise residential towers. A trio of older buildings would be saved and repurposed.
(image by A.C. Martin)
At this month’s Downtown Los Angeles Neighborhood Council Planning and Land Use Management committee meeting, the Onni Group revealed a new schedule and details for its major Civic Center project.
A 3-alarm fire which broke out on the 14th floor of a public housing high-rise in a heavily immigrant neighborhood of Minneapolis early Wednesday killed five people and injured three, according to reports.
FOX 9 reported that four of the victims were found on the 14th floor and pronounced dead on the scene; the fifth victim was found in a stairway and died in a hospital.
A 45-story tower in the Financial District from Mitsui Fudosan America, the U.S. arm of the Japanese developer, has taken a step forward with the publication this month of the project’s initial environmental study. The documents show a significant redesign.
Recently an article, Construction Concerns: IBC 2021 Heavy Timber Proposal[1] , appeared in Fire Engineering that raised concerns regarding the now newly passed “Tall Mass Timber” code additions to the International Building Code (IBC) 2021 Edition. The article briefly outlined some of the central code changes that will permit tall mass timber buildings.
A brief examination of all the Tall Mass Timber (TMT) code provisions that will be included in the 2021 International Building Code (IBC) will demonstrate that the fire safety protection required by the new code changes provides for the life safety of occupants and firefighters that will respond to emergencies in these buildings.
Why These Codes Were Necessary
Portland, Oregon, has an eight-story condominium building, Carbon 12, made of mass timber (photo 3). It is the tallest modern wooden timber building in the country. Minneapolis’ T3 Building (photos 1, 4) is a seven-story mass timber office building. Two new tall mass timber buildings have been proposed by New Land Enterprises in Milwaukee, one an office building the other residential.[2] Others are being proposed in Cleveland, Newark, and other cities.
Building officials needed well-crafted code provisions to guide their plans review and approval process. The International Code Council (ICC) was asked to create a committee to study the science of tall wood buildings, assess their feasibility, and, if feasible, draft code provisions that would protect the occupants and first responders. The result of the three years of committee work and fire testing produced the 14-code provision that will be included into the IBC in 2021.
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“I think we’re one of the tallest buildings in the Arts District,” Ryan Afari said on a cloudy weekday afternoon.
Afari made the comment while standing on the rooftop deck of the Walnut Building. He pointed to the Toy and Biscuit Company lofts a few blocks away, the two structures that kicked off the Arts District residential boom more than a decade ago.
The Walnut Building is the latest project from developer the Hillcrest Company, which previously tackled Downtown endeavors including the Chapman Lofts in the Historic Core and the Commodore Building in City West. Like its Arts District neighbors, the Walnut is an aged commercial structure that has been turned into housing. The exterior has been fully restored, and the rooftop refashioned to provide a deck with a sweeping view.
