Swinerton to Celebrate Topping Out at Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s New Parking Structure

In April 2013, the design-build team of Swinerton Builders and IDG Parkitects broke ground on the new West Arroyo Parking Structure at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

While serving as design-build contractor on this project, Swinerton has previously completed successful jobs at the NASA Ames Research Center; Sustainability Base and the NASA JPL Flight Projects Center. Design-build members include Structural Engineer Jessen-Wright; Civil Engineer Land Design Consultants, Inc. and Traffic Consultant LSA Associates.

The $17.5-million project consists of a new 5-story, 1,425-stall, cast-in-place and post-tension concrete parking structure. The last elevated concrete deck was scheduled to be poured on June 19 followed by the topping out ceremony. Swinerton's internal concrete group is self-performing the entire $6-million concrete scope on the 460,000-square-foot parking structure, which includes a total of 19 deck pours and 5 slab-on-grade pours.

At the start of work, JPL utility service lines ran the length of the 900-foot-long parking structure's planned footprint, which conflicted with the new foundations. Swinerton rerouted all of these lines, including sewer, water, storm, communications, natural gas and compressed air. In order to reroute overhead electrical transmission lines under and around the parking structure, Swinerton and IDG Parkitects participated in complex design and construction coordination meetings with Southern California Edison.

Swinerton also demolished existing on-site buildings, while providing significant ancillary roadway and surrounding hardscape improvements. The upper parking level will also have the structural capability for a future support grid for photovoltaic panels. The project is set to finish this August, providing JPL with much-needed parking.