Bank, VeraSun tenants for Minnesota Ave. site
June 10, 2008
One of Sioux Falls' newest office buildings has sunk two inches into soft soil, and workers now must pump a cement mix into the ground to try to raise it back up.
Concrete footings on the north side of the the First Bank & Trust Financial Centre at Ninth Street and Minnesota Avenue have settled "beyond normal tolerances," said Dale Jans, president of Jans Corp., the building's general contractor.
"There's a layer of bad soil under the footings," he said.
The building can't open until the problem is fixed. Besides First Bank & Trust, Brookings-based VeraSun Energy plans to become a tenant when it moves its corporate headquarters there this summer.
The four-story building is owned by The Dunham Co. Jans said having the soil properly tested was Dunham's responsibility.
Dunham chairman Don Dunham Jr. said testing showed no indication the soil under the building couldn't hold its weight.
Jans said the problem came to the contractors' attention recently.
"We just noticed the windowsills weren't all at the same elevation," Jans said. "When we built the building they were level, and about a month after that, they weren't."
Some stabilizing work has been done to keep the 60,000-square-foot building from sinking further, Jans said, and a company from Tennessee will come to Sioux Falls this month to complete the job.
R. Michael Bivens, geotechnical engineer for Knoxville, Tenn.-based Rembco Geotechnical Contractors, said the soil under the building's foundation contains river deposits of sand and clay and glacial till.
"The thing that's generating the settling is that some of this material is better than others," Bivens said.
Bivens' firm will use a technique known as compaction grouting to drill a hole about 30 feet deep through the foundation down to the bedrock. They then pump a thick mortar-like sand and cement material into the hole. The shaft compacts the soil around it, Bivens said. That increases the soil's density, making it better able to hold the building's foundation and help raise it.
Bivens said the procedure is necessary to maintain the structural integrity of the office building.
"It was clear from the photos that we saw that it was an emergency situation," Bivens said.
Dunham and Jans said the total cost of the foundation and soil work has not been determined. It's also not clear yet who ultimately will foot the bill for the extra work.
"It's (whoever is) responsible," Dunham said. "We haven't identified that yet."
The foundation problems have pushed back when the building's namesake can move in. The building has to be declared sound by a structural engineer before the city of Sioux Falls issues a certificate of occupancy.
First Bank & Trust agreed last year to lease one and a half stories of the building and also acquired naming rights. The building originally was dubbed Minnesota Centre.
Brian Thompson, First Bank & Trust's president and chief executive, said the company still plans to be a tenant.
"We don't have any concerns," Thompson said.
The bank was to move in sometime in July, and now it probably will be August, Dunham said.
Brookings-based VeraSun Energy plans to locate its corporate headquarters there on two and a half floors of the building at the end of the summer.
"We're still targeted for the move at the end of summer," said VeraSun spokesman Mike Lockrem. "We're aware of the repair work that needs to be done and have been assured that it will be properly taken care of."
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Downtown Events Center?
Do you have access to any drawings, or when work is expected to start? 11 floors will be the total if my count is right, the same as the Qwest tower.
and that's a really nice building too
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