Adjacent to the Pike Place Market and on the edge between downtown Seattle and Belltown, Bergelectric in conjunction with general contractor Andersen Construction, successfully completed The Emerald—a new high-rise condominium/mixed-use tower, 41 stories (439 feet) above the Emerald City. The jewel-shaped condominium tower offers five levels of below-grade parking, retail stores at the ground level, and two top-floor penthouses.
The Emerald site has a very small footprint for a building of its height—approximately 94-feet X 100-feet. The tower sits in such tight quarters that as the structure increases in height, the floor plates expand to over 9,100-s.f. by cantilevering over its neighbor, the Broadacres Building, to the south. The Emerald’s expanded floors take on the shape of the shifting street grid pattern.
“Locating electrical gear and conduit routing within the small allocated spaces for the main electrical room and generator presented a challenge,” said Bergelectric’s Sr. Project Manager Alex Yurchenko. “We actually had to swap the rooms—placed the generator in the main electrical room and switchgear in the generator room. Then we worked with mechanical engineer, Holaday-Parks, and provided alternative options to cool the generator in the new location. We tried several scenarios—from a remote liquid cooled radiator, to adding supply duct shafts. We selected on a plan to fully duct the radiator discharge to the exterior,” Yurchenko continued.
Bergelectric’s scope of work at The Emerald Tower included the following systems: Electrical, tel-data, fire alarm, access control, CCTV, Audio-Video, and Distributed Antenna System (DAS).