SCS BT Squared

Goodman Community Center Wins WI Builder Magazine Top Projects Award

 

A building reborn

Skeptics questioned whether architects, engineers, contractors and community leaders could transform a 100-year-old Madison agriculture equipment and steel fabrication factory into a 21st century neighborhood center.

And they had good reason.

The future site of the Goodman Community Center was contaminated with lead paint, asbestos and polychlorinated biphenyls. Also, the factory and site were plagued by flooding due to storm-sewer problems.

To end flooding problems, crews with BT Squared Inc., Madison, worked with city of Madison engineers to coordinate a storm-sewer reconstruction project.

To remediate some of the building’s environmental concerns, the firm stripped, cleaned and refinished an outdoor metal gantry, a crane and some framework that later were used as architectural elements for the community center.

To remediate some of the site’s environmental concerns, BT Squared removed, relocated and capped contaminated soil.

“The site was one of the most challenging I’ve seen in years,” said Eric Oelkers, a BT Squared senior project engineer.

Along with the building’s environmental concerns, its structure posed a challenge for architects and contractors.

Cliff Goodhart, an architect and senior project manager at Eppstein Uhen Architects Inc., Milwaukee, wanted to retain much of the building’s weathered brick and old-timber structure to preserve its historic aspects.

“All that stuff added to the texture of the building,” he said.

Peter Vogel, president of Madison’s Vogel Brothers Building Co., Madison, said architects and contractors met weekly with community center officials to develop a plan to best utilize the long, narrow building.

“It took a lot of vision on the part of the design team to get it where it is today,” Vogel said. “We had to work with surprises. Some of the structural elements needed to be reworked.”

The result of the environmental and renovation work is a functional building with a public lobby, meeting rooms, a fitness center, a stage, a commercial kitchen and an outdoor café along a popular bike path.

“It was a big, ugly, old building,” said Becky Steinhoff, executive director of the Goodman Community Center. “Now, many times a day, I hear that it’s an incredible facility.”