Inside out
Team strengthened, renovated 1893 structure during 17-year project
The renovation of Old North lasted 17 years and remade the underlying structure.
EDMOND — Work was well underway to restore venerable Old North on the University of Central Oklahoma campus when earthquakes began swarming in 2009.
That raised concerns and transformed a more conventional renovation project into something extraordinary.
“What’s amazing is that the entire internal structural system was removed and replaced with a brand-new skeleton — without disturbing the historic exterior,” said Dennis Wells, vice president with Miles Associates, the architecture firm that designed and managed the project.
“The exterior walls are literally bolted to the new internal steel skeleton. This is a remarkable structural project,” Wells said.
Project architect Mark Gandy said bringing the 1893 sandstone structure in line with current seismic requirements involved a number of challenges that dwarfed the issues confronted in Phases I and II of the renovation.
The project started in 2000 with exterior work. The following year everyone was moved out of the building because of safety concerns. Phase II was construction of an addition with restrooms, fire stairs, an elevator and new mechanical systems. Manmade stone that resembles the old sandstone was used to blend the old and the new together.
But the big challenge was Phase III — the interior of the well-worn original structure.
Old North sat on a stackedstone foundation. The exterior walls were not reinforced. The wooden floor joists were inserted into holes in the walls, but there was no secure connection.
“So all you’ve got is stacked block and the mortar that holds it together,” said structural engineer John Bocox of ZFI Engineering Co.
An earthquake of great enough magnitude would bring the walls and the floors down in total collapse, he said.
It was a team effort
The first step was to create a new foundation system by inserting more than 150 piers in the basement. It had to be done using small equipment in confined interior spaces, taking care not to undermine the existing foundation, Bocox said.
Next, steel columns were installed up through all four floors. The column placement had to allow for the movement of equipment and had to leave enough room to pull the existing frame out.
The same consideration was made when installing temporary bracing to hold the exterior walls in place so the floors could be removed.
“All the floors you put into a building are essentially bracing those exterior walls,” Bocox said.
They worked from the top down, removing and replacing one floor at a time. “You can’t just take out all the floors at once. You have to do it in a sequence,” Gandy said.
Each step was a team effort that required a lot of coordination among the architect, engineer and contractor, CMS Willowbrook, he said.
On most projects, engineers and architects design what the finished product is supposed to be, but the nuts and bolts are left up to the discretion of the contractor, Bocox said.
“But on this project, because of the complexity of it, we actually put together a scheme of how to do this,” he said. Then, working together, they tweaked it as they went along.
Bocox said, “Every decision that was made by the team was ‘If we’re going to put this in, how do we get the existing out of the way at the same time?’”
Old North has new life
The materials and construction techniques used 120 years ago left Old North skewed.
“The building was out of alignment, the tower was built twisted, the roof structure was not totally flat,” Gandy said. “So we had to adapt the straight steel. We had to cast special plates to put in there on the roof. We tried to make it look as straight as we could.”
Among the only original elements retained are the stairs at the south and north ends of the building, which don’t match by 7 inches.
“They built these two at different times when they built it, and they never intended them to connect,” Gandy said. “And, of course, their levels were not square.”
On the fourth floor, the slope is apparent.
“We went back in with this new structural system that’s got all the modern code requirements built into it, but then we had to make sure that we hooked back up to the existing structure so we could brace it,” Bocox said.
“That was probably the biggest challenge. We tried to do flexible connections to take into account the building geometry issues,” he said.
They left some of the steel structure exposed — like lateral bracing that became the perfect location to hang television screens — as well as original stone that hearkens to the past.
“It’s the same old Old North from the outside, and yet inside is a new modern space that expresses the history of it,” Bocox said.
The 17-year project culminated in February with a celebration and open house.
“It’s very satisfying to see it completed,” Gandy said. “To see the people walk through the space was really satisfying for me and to hear the comments.”
Shuttered since 2001, the first building dedicated to higher education erected in Oklahoma Territory now stands ready to serve another century.
“It’s probably the eighth wonder of Oklahoma, if not the world,” said Bud Miles, founder of Miles Associates.
“If there’s a compliment, it’s the tenacity of this group and the courage and commitment for UCO to take on what they did. They could have scrapped that building and caught a little flak for two years,” Miles said. “But that’s a good old building.”