What started in the summer of 2017 as a phased renovation of 18 typical office floors grew into the total rebuild of 16 floors and two special-use project team floors as well as renovation of three floors of executive suites at the top of the tower. The project team’s  overarching challenge was the phased approach, required for the 394,000-sq-ft renovation in order to keep the largest number of floors operational at all times. The project team of Builders 2020—a joint venture of New South Construction, Leapley Construction and Balfour Beatty—used creative approaches and alternate work shifts to provide access for materials and manpower while it also updated aging building infrastructure.

Early on, the design team of Gensler, Newcomb & Boyd and Uzun+Case was able to convince the city of Atlanta—which required separate permit applications for each floor—to accept a single construction drawing set for each application. Complicating matters, the project’s schedule called for later floors not to start construction until more than a year after the city issued permits. The city eventually agreed to allow the permits to remain active until work started on later floors. Also, full redesigns of Levels 12 and 23 required complete permit resubmittals, and adding executive floors introduced a separate set of drawings for construction documents, thus generating a new round of permitting.

For noise and access reasons, Builders 2020 scheduled all demolition for overnight hours, performing the work through one continuous mobilization that started in May 2017 on Level 5 and completing it in 2019 on Level 26. To replace two rooftop skylights—both more than 2,000 sq ft—contractors used a helicopter to bring materials to the roof and an extensive scaffolding system to provide a temporary roof for the several weeks of work required to replace each skylight.

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