Great Escape

J.F. Cook preserves fire exit

Milwaukee City Hall Fire Escape Milwaukee

By Chris Thompson

It says something about a project when its difficulty scares away all but two bidders.

It also says something about the state of the Milwaukee City Hall fire escape when it fails the city's own fire exit inspection.

Put those two together and mix in the resounding success with which J.F. Cook Co. Inc. completed the reattachment of the fire escape, and it adds up to a high-profile, challenging centerpiece to a year's worth of projects.

Tom Druml, vice president of the Oak Creek-based company, said the city knew the fire escape was unusable, but planners wanted to maintain the structure on the exterior of the 100-year-old, nine-story building.

"They wanted to maintain the fire escape as a viable exit for the building, but it was so unstable that they had to come up with a series of designs to reattach it to the building," he said. "They did not have an original plan on when it was installed or how it was connected to the building, which made it very difficult for the city to come up with a design."

Once the city came up with a plan, J.F. Cook had to develop a technique for attaching new stainless steel components to the old steel of the fire escape and anchoring the whole structure back to the wall.

Holes in one

J.F. Cook's solution consisted of using its subcontractor, Con-Cor Co. Inc., Menomonee Falls, to drill 120 3-foot holes in groupings of four into the 4-foot-thick walls of City Hall. Each hole, Druml said, had to be drilled by hand and had to be perfectly perpendicular to properly hold the rods that would act as anchors for the fire escape.

But that was just the beginning of the challenges the project offered. City Hall's walls are made of 100-year-old limestone in various layers, creating gaps and voids that no contractor could anticipate.

Project Name: Milwaukee City Hall Fire Escape Location: Milwaukee Submitting Company: J.F. Cook Co. Inc., Oak Creek General Contractor/Construction Manager: J.F. Cook Co. Inc., Oak Creek Architect: City of Milwaukee Engineer: City of Milwaukee Owner: City of Milwaukee Project Cost: $320,788 Start Date: January 2001 Completion Date: Spring 2002

"What we had to do was pretty much drill into the unknown," said Druml, adding that one of the project's only hiccups was when a drill cored a water pipe, leaving the city attorney with a wet office.

Keeping the rods in the holes presented another problem for J.F. Cook because the voids in the wall couldn't hold the epoxy. So the company inserted stainless steel sleeves to hold the epoxy and the rods in place.

Stage two of the project — attaching the fire escape to the brackets that covered the rods — presented just as many challenges.

"It was a really complicated job because in order to do it, we had to do one story at a time," Druml said. "So we started with the first floor, cut it loose and supported it from the second story fire escape with chain hoists. We went floor by floor."

And, eventually, J.F. Cook and its team accomplished what few contractors were willing to even try.

"It's a fine example of what a good team of subcontractors can do," Druml said. "We had a great time. That building has a lot of character, a lot of history, and it was a really interesting job. It's as solid as a rock right now and hopefully for a long, long time."

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