Guiding light

New Gulf Shores condo to open on time despite storms

By Angelle Bergeron

The Lighthouse Condominium in Gulf Shores, Ala., will open in time for the 2006 vacation season, despite Hurricane Ivan in 2004 and one of the busiest hurricane seasons in history in 2005.

"We lost about 90 days from Ivan and a couple weeks from the storms this year, but we aren't going to change our finish date," said Austin Allen, project manager for the contractor, Coastal Builders Inc. of Mobile.

"We want to finish up so everybody has a unit for the summer season."

Most vacationers familiar with the sugar-white sand beaches of Gulf Shores recall the local landmark lighthouse that previously marked the spot on East Beach Boulevard, about three quarters of a mile west of where Highway 59 dead ends at the beach.

"It was not a real lighthouse but a well-known landmark," said Allen of the quirky, 1960s structure built as a lighthouse replica. Coastal demolished the hodgepodge of several buildings that comprised the old hotel in April 2004, preparing the way for the new, 18-story, 251-unit condominium.

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Coastal signed the negotiated bid contract with the owner, East Beach Development LLC, a conglomeration of investors for whom the contractor has worked on several previous occasions. "We've done other work for them (under different names), so I would say they are repeat customers," Allen said.

No other condominiums in the area rival the Lighthouse in size, Allen added. The huge, bow-shaped structure would be about 700 ft. long from end to end were it straightened out, Allen said.

"Since it curves, it's about 530 ft."

The condominium contains 18 units on each floor, which is a dramatic departure from the usual two or three units.

"There is really nothing else down here like it. Usually, when you have a 250-unit condo, you have a couple different buildings," Allen said. "A lot of the buildings that are coming up now in the preliminary stages may be 500 units, but that's split between three or four buildings or one tall with a shorter one next to it."

An adjacent, three-story parking garage is located on the north side of the building. The first floor of the main structure is 80 percent parking, with a heated pool and fitness area on one end. The second floor is also primarily parking, except for a common reception area and meeting space.

The south side of the building, the beach side, features two outdoor, zero-entry pools "where you just walk in like a beach," Allen said.

The poured-in-place concrete post tension frame has a good deal of rebar, but very little structural steel.

"It's a standard condo in the fact that it's concrete but the amount of concrete was totally different from what we normally do," Allen said. "The size of the concrete frame is just a lot more massive than we're used to. There are solid concrete walls dividing the units where we typically have some columns."

The abundance of concrete is necessary because of the design, which features a lot of curves and angles, Allen said.

"Initially, we were going to use a tunnel form system, but, because of all the angles, that wouldn't work," he said. "During the design phase, they changed it to using normal post tension."

All of the structural slabs were comprised of a high-early mix to achieve the 3,000-8,000 psi strength required for post-tensioning, but that isn't unusual, said John Windle, project manager for concrete subcontractor Ard Contracting of Birmingham.

"There was a large quantity of walls, which made the schedule requirements a little bit harder because if you have to do twice as many walls in one pour, it takes twice as long to do your vertical," Windle said.

Each floor is approximately 35,000 sq. ft., which required four pours per floor.

"We turned a floor every two weeks," Windle said. The supplier, Reynolds Ready Mix USA, has two plants within a couple miles of the site, so no batch plant was erected on location.

"We used a structural engineer from south Florida who believes in concrete," said Henry Norris of the Pensacola, Fla., architectural firm of Henry Norris and Associates.

The result is an unusually sturdy building that is likely to weather any future tropical storms or hurricanes. "That building is definitely not going anywhere," Allen said.

When Ivan hit the Gulf Coast in September 2004, Coastal had completed seven floors of the concrete frame and had begun to install metal framing for the interior living units.

"We had several levels of form work collapse," Allen said. "Our slab on grade washed away and we lost a lot of material and equipment."

This year, the project suffered delays from several tropical storms, hurricanes Dennis, Katrina and Rita. "We have some damage from Katrina that was all storm surge related, but we are still in the process of assessing the actual impact from the storm," Allen said. "The building is structurally fine, but we had 2 ft. of sand in the first floor (which is parking garage) and it damaged a lot of material that was stored there."

Owners instructed the architect to "design the building to fit the site," Norris said. However, the architect took the opportunity to make a reminiscent nod toward the site's predecessor and namesake.

"We used a lot of glass on the north façade of the building to emulate or help symbolize a lighthouse and some of the roof forms symbolize lighthouse orbs," Norris said. Varying heights on different parts of the building, the bow shape that angles away from the road at either end and the different exterior finish materials all "break up the effect of a box-type design," he added.

Coastal is currently finishing out the interior and will start closing units in May, Allen said. "With a building this size, there are a bunch of loose ends you have to finish up."