Hybrid Parking Garages enhance your development by delivering creative, sustainable and cost-effective quality parking solutions. Hybrid Parking Garages welcomes the opportunity to deliver parking that fully achieves your goals with an aligned and timely tailored approach to your unique challenge.

1. September, 20126
www.high-profile.com
by Alan H. Simon
O
ften when I am seated in front of
new clients discussing their parking
garage projects, I find myself defin-
ing a consultant’s value in terms of multi-
ples of fee. How can
I deliver the most ef-
ficient and affordable
program that meets
each client’s unique
challenge? The an-
swer lies in critical
thinking that leads
to optimal solutions.
One such solution for
parking is the hybrid
system: a combina-
tion of structural steel
and precast concrete
that achieves both savings in construction
and maintenance costs. This approach to
parking also results in greater speed of con-
struction; simple and lighter foundations;
enhanced durability; more options for clad-
ding, design, and aesthetics; and real sus-
tainability with highly recyclable content.
It is the building component of steel,
with its many structural properties, that de-
livers all of these benefits and often makes
the hybrid solution the right one for park-
ing clients. Steel that is exposed to view is
much more easily maintained than is rebar
buried in concrete that has lost its ability to
protect steel when its environment has been
changed by the intrusion of chemicals. Be-
cause of the need for fast construction, pre-
cast concrete has a greater potential for high
strength and higher durability than does
cast-in-place.
Performance and innovation
One of the earliest hybrid garage proj-
ects with which I was involved as a mem-
ber of the former Boston engineering firm
of Zaldastani Associates, Inc. (ZAI) is in
East Cambridge, Mass. Located one block
from the Middlesex County Court House
and CambridgeSide Galleria, the 600-ve-
hicle garage has received decades of heavy
use. Despite continual traffic, the garage is
in pristine condition and is one of the best
examples of the durability and ease of main-
tenance afforded by a hybrid system where
steel elements are exposed rather than em-
bedded in concrete.
The East Cambridge garage also dis-
plays a unique look with its combination of
brick façade and steel frame. Cladding, de-
sign, and aesthetics often matter, especially
in campus settings or any development
where the garage must be integrated into
its surroundings. Our team took on many
large-scale garages on corporate campuses,
including the Becton Dickinson project lo-
cated in Franklin Lakes, NJ. Designed and
built for a multinational corporate client and
involving the renowned architecture firm
of Kallmann, McKinnell and Wood, it was
critical that the garage be in keeping with
the look of the well-planned corporate cam-
pus while at the same time being an eco-
nomical and durable structure. The steel and
precast approach enabled the team to meet
these criteria.
The hybrid system evolves
In early 1990s, the portfolio of hybrid
parking garages grew nationally as more
clients and end users benefited from the ad-
vantages of steel and precast under a design-
build delivery format.
The increase in popularity of the de-
sign-build methodology cut across all areas
of our industry, especially impacting garage
design and construction since the precast
industry was one of the first to embrace
design-build.
The design-build hybrid garage de-
liverable was quickly adopted as an alterna-
tive to precast and repeatedly, in the field,
proved to be a more durable and cost ef-
fective solution that was better suited for
accommodating a variety of exterior treat-
ments and cladding.
Bottom line, the greater industry ac-
ceptance and application of design-build
amplified the benefits that clients receive
from the steel and precast approach.
These projects included seven AT&T
garages in Middletown, NJ, and Warren,
NJ. The firm’s hybrid design-build system
proved so successful that an integrated park-
ing garage design-build company was even-
tually established. Market demand then led
to the foundation of Hybrid Parking Solu-
tions, LLC, a company that focused on the
design and construction of parking struc-
tures for private development. The company
eventually transitioned into the parking and
professional engineering firm that I founded
with my design team. Simon Design Engi-
neering, Wellesley, Mass., serves major cli-
ents nationally with both parking as well as
general structural engineering needs.
The current and continued market
desire for the deliverable of steel and pre-
cast as a system and a 25-year-plus work-
ing relationship with AISC member Berlin
Steel Construction Co., Inc. has resulted in
the formation of Hybrid Parking Garages,
Kensington, Conn. The company’s most
recent project is St. Anne’s Hospital garage
completed this summer in Fall River, Mass.,
for Steward Health Care in association with
Suffolk Construction.
Looking to the future, the hybrid sys-
tem will continue to reduce the extent of
field welding and will feature comprehen-
sive advancements in value-added design,
as well as patent-pending and other innova-
tions that seek to continually improve and
solidify the hybrid approach.
Alan Simon is a principal at Simon
Design Engineering, LLC, Wellesley, Mass.
and Hybrid Parking Garages.
Hybrid Parking Solution Packs Powerful One-Two Punch
East Cambridge parking garage
St. Anne’s Hospital employee parking garage
AT&T hybrid parking garages
High-Profile Pull-Out Section: Structural Steel at Work
Inside this Issue
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BOND CM for UMass Fitchburg State Project
Erland Tops Off New School Center with Robert Olsen + Assoc.
LLD Designs, KBE Builds URI’s Hillside Residence Hall
Profile: CTA Cements Place as Leading School Builder
Cutler Associates’ Design Build Anna Maria College Holds Open House
Oldcastle Precast Awarded Liberty Terrace Dormitory
BC Project Achieves LEED Platinum
Tewksbury High School Tops Off
UMass Lowell Begins Steel Erection
Suffolk Construction Builds The Victor Luxury Apartments
Pro Con Breaks Ground For Aviv Center for Living, KDAArchitect
Contracting Specialists Awarded
Ground Breaking for Bristol Hotel
Construction Starts on New Storrs Center
Increasing Natural Gas Demand in NE by Douglas Pope
MIT Sloan: Archieving Acoustical, Audiovisual, and Technological Success
Colleges Carving out New Space on Existing Campuses by Julie Nugent
P.O. Box 7, Pembroke, MA 02359
Change Service Requested
September 2011
plus Connecticut Facilities, Heathcare, Green News, Awards,
Multi Residential, Business News, People, Calendar and more...
Agostini Builds Norwood HS
Educational Facilities Developments
Focus:
Featuring:
241 Narragansett Park Drive, East Providence, RI 02916
Phone (401) 431-1200 Fax: (401) 431-0049
www.baconconstruction.com
Norwood, MA - Agostini Construction Company
of East Providence, R.I. along with Compass
Project Management, Inc. of Medfield, Mass.,
the owner’s project manager, teamed up with
the Massachusetts School Building Authority
(MSBA) and Architectural Involution (Ai3) of
Wayland to successfully manage, design, and
build the new Norwood High School.
The new high school was the first model built
under the MSBA’s Model School Program...see
story on page 32.
Compass Project Management CM, Ai3 ArchitectCompass Project Management CM, Ai3 Architect
(above) gymnasium (below) auditorium
Library
(above) athletic field
(top and below)
Entrance to athletic
center and performing arts center.
Norwood High School main entrance
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Alan Simon