Sto Panel Technology Meets Some Texas-Sized Challenges

At the very first meeting on a 34-story hotel project planned for downtown Austin Texas, Michael Vickery, Managing Director for Dallas-based Baker Triangle Prefab, found his team confronting several challenges along with the usual client expectations. “The challenges,” recalls Vickery, “included working on a zero lot space located in a downtown location with no laydown area and coping with an aggressive dry-in schedule, while also dealing with the prevailing manpower shortage and coordinating the seven subcontracting trades required to build the exterior building envelope.” The expectations? “That we would ensure the safest construction environment possible while meeting the highest standards within our industry for both QA and QC.”  It was headache-y.

During the subsequent vetting process, what Vickery discovered was that Sto Panel Technology (SPT) offered an ideal workaround solution for meeting the accumulated speed bumps. Using Sto’s prefab panelization system, Baker Triangle could do the job in a way that required zero jobsite laydown, met the aggressive dry-in schedule (installing a complete floor in just two days), and required only six workers to install the building skin vs the customary 55.

Because the Sto panels were to be manufactured offsite in an enclosed production environment, there was no requirement for workers on the jobsite to do the traditional tasks. Sure enough, once the job got underway, all the framing, sheathing, waterproofing, metal panel integration, EIFS, window units and window caulking were executed offsite and incorporated within each panel.

During construction, the expectations related to safety, efficiency and quality that Baker Triangle had confronted were met by eliminating the scaffolding requirements and limiting the onsite manpower while offering Sto Panel’s completely transparent digitized QA/QC program. The latter was easily monitored by the owner, the project architect and the third-party consultant for each of the 600 panels required.

Today, while the hotel project still has months of interior work to be completed prior the grand opening, the entire building envelope is now complete — allowing interior work to progress throughout the winter and wet spring months without any weather delays. For Baker Triangle, now an SPT affiliate, the StoPanel system delivered on all counts: speed, value and quality. Says Vickery, “it’s been a win-win-win project for everyone involved.”