The University of Michigan’s Church Street parking structure provides over 500 spaces and is used by both faculty and students. The structure’s existing railing system began to corrode and needed to be brought up to code.

PULLMAN was contracted to increase the loading capacity of the railing in order to help ensure stability in the garage against a vehicle strike.

The scope of work involved a complete railing replacement. The existing rails were embedded in the perimeter of the concrete spandrel wall and were removed in phases to limit the amount of space without railing during the project. The new railing systems were fully galvanized and anchored to the structure using slab-through bolts in front of the existing spandrel walls.

One of the challenges the team faced was the through-bolt anchoring and found ongoing drilling issues that had to be addressed. In order to avoid existing slab reinforcing steel, a detailed GPR scan was performed prior to construction.

The University required a detailed site-specific safety plan that included detailed planning to ensure that existing railing was only removed when the new railing system was ready to be installed. The project was completed on time, within the set budget, and with no safety incidents.