[1]Location: Cincinnati, OH
Schedule: February 2018 – May 2019
Type: Masonry [2], Façade Restoration [3]
Client: United States Postal Service
Built in 1933 by the famed architecture firm Samuel Hannaford & Sons (the same that gave Cincinnati both City and Music Hall), the Cincinnati Post Office on Dalton Avenue has been a part of the city’s rich history for nearly a century. The Art Deco-style building with a bold stone façade was meticulously restored on the north, west, and south elevations for a total of approximately 225,000 SF.
Check out the video documenting mid-way through the process. [4]
This facility serves as the Cincinnati Processing and Distribution Center and handles mail for 51 counties: 34 in Ohio, 12 in Kentucky, and 5 in Indiana. All repairs were performed
while this bustling center maintained daily operations. The nearly $7MM scope included:
- Replacement of 5,000 SF of Berea sandstone panels, each weighing about 800 lbs per piece.
- Stone patching for remaining deteriorated Berea sandstone panels.
- Cleaning of the 68,000 SF facade. 100% replacement of historic windows on all elevations.
- Replacing stone involved carefully coordinating removal, stocking and setting procedures that occurred 95 feet in the air above an active loading dock.
- Tuckpointing of all existing stone masonry joints.
- Installation of helifix anchors throughout entire facade. These anchors help secure existing Berea sandstone that remained where prior steel anchors had deteriorated and rusted away.
- New stone window header replacement throughout.
- New steel lintel installation at various openings to reinforce where former structure deteriorated and failed.
- Restoration of granite stone at base of facade around perimeter of building.
- Stone consolidation application over all 68,000 SF.
SSRG brought in general contractor HGC Construction [5] to lead the large-scale window replacement.