Fewer cross-ties, simpler link beams and less fire protection. The nearly 1.4-million-sq-ft 200 Park high-rise in San José, Calif., though only 300 ft tall, has taken Seattle’s 850-ft-tall proof of concept for SpeedCore—a novel modular steel-plate shear-wall sandwich system—to new heights. And the creators of the 19-story office building have demonstrated again, but with fewer aches and pains, that SpeedCore quickens the pace of construction, especially compared to a steel frame with a leading concrete core.
200 Park is on budget and schedule for substantial completion at the end of May 2023. But SpeedCore is done. “Everything went pretty darn smoothly,” says Kevin Englund, a vice president of operations for 200 Park’s general contractor, Level 10 Construction, which declined to provide the value of its guaranteed-maximum-price contract.