The Wilshire Grand Center was recently awarded the Gold Award by the Los Angeles Business Journal for the “Best Mixed Use Project”.

More information about Conco’s role in the Wilshire Grand Center can be found on the following blog posts.

Lifting Los Angeles to New Heights

On Monday, February 29, 2016, the Conco Companies topped off the core of the Wilshire Grand Center building in downtown Los Angeles. With over 150,000 cubic yards of concrete poured, and an intensely dedicated crew peaking to over 160 men and women on site, the Conco team has finally reached the milestone to lead the way for the interior finishes. Read more…

Breaking the Guinness World Record for the Largest Continuous Mat Pour

Starting at 4:47 p.m. on Saturday, February 15, 2014, Conco broke the Guinness World Record for the largest continuous mat pour in 18 ½ hours (1 ½ hours under the projected time). To verify the event, there was an official Guinness World Records adjudicator on-site. The mat pour was for the new Wilshire Grand Center that is being constructed in downtown Los Angeles and is slated to become the tallest building in the U.S. west of the Mississippi. Read more…

Conco’s Thermal Control Plan of the Wilshire Grand Mat Foundation Pour Proves Successful

Among the many unique features of the Wilshire Grand mat foundation pour was the thermal control plan. Occasionally we need to make provisions for the heat that is generated in mat foundations. In mass concrete structures, there are two thermal properties that must be considered: the maximum temperature and the temperature difference between the center of the structure and surface. Read more…

Conco’s Equipment Met the Tough Challenges of the Wilshire Grand Pour With Flying Colors

To successfully complete the world’s largest continuous mat pour, one of the biggest challenges Conco faced was to find ways to unload 120 – 150 truckloads of concrete per hour. With the need to unload so many trucks in such a short period of time, Conco’s plan called for thirteen points of placement in the mat foundation. However, only two sides of the project were accessible from the street. Read more…

Record Setting Event Accomplished Without Injury

While Conco is justifiably proud of breaking the World record for the largest continuous mat pour, we are even more proud of doing it safely. Our commitment to safety began with the vision from Conco’s Southern California General Manager, Rick Parker. Five months prior to the pour, he invited John Messing, Conco’s Safety Director, to participate in the planning meetings for the Grand Pour. Rick has learned from his years of experience that projects go more smoothly when the safety department is involved early-on to ensure that safety is built into the overall work plan. Read more…

Conco Awarded the Wilshire Grand Center Project

Conco has been given the opportunity to participate in another landmark project by providing concrete services for the new Wilshire Grand Center being built in downtown L.A. The new tower will become the tallest building in the United States west of the Mississippi. This is one of several of our large-scale projects in Los Angeles. Others include the recently completed 125 year old Hall of Justice retrofit, the new Federal Courthouse, a new 45 story cast in place building at 10000 Santa Monica, The iconic ARTIC transportation Center in Anaheim and several smaller projects. Read more…

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2017 Charles J. Pankow Jr. Award awarded to The Conco Companies

The Charles J. Pankow, Jr. Award recognizes outstanding and innovative use of concrete in construction. This award was established by the Southern California ACI Chapter in 1984 in honor of Charles J. Pankow, Jr. who served as the International President of ACI in 1980-1981 and who has been active in the Southern California Chapter since its founding. The award is made annually, if, in the judgment of the Awards Committees, a qualified project and contractor are nominated. The Conco Companies is proud to be the recipient of the 2017 Pankow Award for Excellence in Concrete Construction for the Wilshire Grand Project.

2017 Pankow Award for Excellence in Concrete Construction - The Conco Companies

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On Monday, February 29, 2016, the Conco Companies topped off the core of the Wilshire Grand Center building in downtown Los Angeles. With over 150,000 cubic yards of concrete poured, and an intensely dedicated crew peaking to over 160 men and women on site, the Conco team has finally reached the milestone to lead the way for the interior finishes.

Once completed, the Wilshire Grand project will be the tallest building west of the Mississippi at a height of 1,099 feet. It will surpass the U.S Bank building, also in downtown Los Angeles, by 81 feet.

The Conco Companies is supplying the entire cast-in-place concrete for this project. This includes:

Record breaking mat foundation of 21,200 cubic yards in a single pour
High strength concrete found inside the core walls
Lightweight deck fill concrete on all floors
Structural deck concrete, below grade walls and columns
Shotcrete perimeter walls

Conco deployed the most powerful concrete stationary pumps in the industry. The primary pump was Conco’s electric powered 14000E pump whose primary benefits are its low carbon footprint and low noise generation. These two significant benefits were crucial in topping off the core, as the pumps were positioned less than 40 feet from an occupied Class A office building. Conco’s 14000E pump is the only one of its kind on the west coast.

Pumping for this project has been trouble-free, allowing us to push both hard rock and lightweight concrete to the top of the structure with power to spare. The 14000E pump has allowed us to move concrete nearly 1,100 feet vertically, and 400 feet horizontally bringing the total pumping distance to nearly 1,500 feet.

Conco has two pumps and supply lines on site to address any unforeseen issues that may arise. The work has been fast-paced with no room for error. The safety of our employees as well as public safety has been our number one priority, and we are proud to announce that the project was a success for both our client and Conco.

The Conco Companies is thankful for a team of dedicated, hard working employees and a great partner, Turner Construction Company. It is with their support and collaborative efforts, that we were able to accomplish this extraordinary feat.

About The Wilshire Grand Center

The Wilshire Grand is a $1.2 billion 73-story mixed-use building. The Wilshire Grand will be a combination of retail and office space with a world-class hotel at the top. When completed in 2017, the Wilshire Grand will become the first Class A space constructed in downtown Los Angeles since 1997.

Lifting Los Angeles to New Heights Topping Off Core - The Conco Companies

Lifting Los Angeles to New Heights Tallest Building - The Conco Companies

Lifting Los Angeles to New Heights Concrete Finishing - The Conco Companies

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Wilshire Grand - Conco Concrete Finishing

Wilshire Grand - Conco Commercial Concrete Contractors

While Conco is justifiably proud of breaking the World record for the largest continuous mat pour, we are even more proud of doing it safely. Our commitment to safety began with the vision from Conco’s Southern California General Manager, Rick Parker. Five months prior to the pour, he invited John Messing, Conco’s Safety Director, to participate in the planning meetings for the Grand Pour. Rick has learned from his years of experience that projects go more smoothly when the safety department is involved early-on to ensure that safety is built into the overall work plan.

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*Photos provided by Gary Leonard

Rick also made the prudent decision to devote the first-quarterly company safety meeting in January entirely to the safety of the pour. During the meeting, Rick Parker and Pumping Manager, Doug Marquis, provided an overview of the Wilshire Grand jobsite along with the challenges, unique project features, and logistical considerations of the job. John Messing spent the balance of the time devoted to discussing the importance of pre-task plans. He assigned three sub-groups to develop such plans regarding the work that they would perform. At the conclusion of the safety meeting, the pumping crew, place and finish crew, and street-level supervisors all had a unique, customized pre-task plan that was used as the basis to ensure their workers understood the hazards of the work and how to mitigate them.

The end result of the successful well-thought out plan was a highly professional team effort from all Conco employees. The entire team—at all levels—executed the plan to perfection, which resulted in zero injuries for this world record continuous concrete pour.

Among the many unique features of the Wilshire Grand mat foundation pour was the thermal control plan. Occasionally we need to make provisions for the heat that is generated in mat foundations. In mass concrete structures there are two thermal properties that must be considered: the maximum temperature and the temperature difference between the center of the structure and surface.

There are multiple ways to control the overall thermal properties of mass concrete. For the Wilshire Grand pour, one of the first things Conco addressed was the concrete mix design. There are a few common adjustments that can be made to the actual mix, but they all have some impact on the production rate when the concrete is being batched. In this case, working with our supplier Catalina Pacific, we increased the proportion of fly-ash which normally results in reduced maximum temperatures.

The next step was to mechanically control the temperatures. Pre-chilling the concrete was not an option due to the rate that we needed to batch and place the concrete. Nor was there a way to feasibly pre-chill 21,200 cubic yards of material ahead of time so we had to consider post-chilling by means of cooling pipes to mechanically remove heat.

For this, we turned to John Gajda of the CTL Group. CTL developed a thermal control plan specific to the mix design, the geometry of the foundation, and the configuration of the rebar. With help from Couts Heating and Cooling, we implemented CTL’s thermal control plan. Ultimately the system we installed to post-chill the concrete was composed of 18 miles of cooling pipes, over 660 tons of chiller capacity, 40,000 gallons of chilled water, multiple pumps, 3 x 500kva generators, and over 2,200 valves. This includes a large amount of contingency and redundancy for reacting to unanticipated thermal phenomena and providing backup during the critical early stages of the thermal control plan.

Subsequently we installed 24 thermal couplers to digitally monitor the thermal properties of the concrete. For assistance, we teamed up with Twining Laboratories who were able to provide hourly readings of the foundation utilizing Intelirock equipment. By monitoring temperatures closely, we could respond by increasing chiller capacity and/or adding insulation if required. Furthermore, monitoring allowed us to determine when the thermal control system could be removed and the concrete core started.

In the end the thermal control system was a success. The maximum temperature was kept below ACI limits and the temperature difference was well within the ranges required to avoid thermal cracking.