Awards of Excellence:

Fort Leavenworth Building 427

Built as a Progressive-Era Commercial style building, it served as the married officer’s quarters in 1921. Building 427 has seen minor physical modifications over the years. Unique to this building is the two sets of stairs within one single core – a public access wrapped around a service access. Utilizing the building’s existing layout, an open office plan was designed while retaining the building’s original wood trim, doors and floors, terrazzo flooring, plaster walls, brick fireplaces along with skylight and windows.

All new mechanical, electrical and piped services were installed and distributed vertically to capitalize on the very regular apartment layout on each floor. Closets were used for piping routes and electrical conduit and small rooms were reused for mechanical space or access halls. In addition, the existing load-bearing brick walls were post-tensioned to meet Federal blast requirements. In order to provide a 4-inch diameter core at 40 feet, the contractor developed a process of adding weeps and negative pressure to draw the injected water of the wet coring method to the outside of the building, protecting the historic interior finishes. All 28 cores were drilled perfectly plumb with no damage to the interior or exterior surfaces of the historic structure.

The project team included Fort Leavenworth DPW, Fort Leavenworth CAC Office of the Deputy to the Commanding General US Army Combined Arms Center, Army Corp of Engineers/Kansas City District, GLMV, Spencer Preservation, Treanor Architects PA, Professional Engineering Consultants and Dudley Williams.