An emerging trend in Denver, CO and across the country, involves retrofitting older buildings to make them more marketable to tenants, as well as more energy efficient and sustainable. An ambitious, highly-involved project completely transformed the Larimer Corporate Plaza in downtown Denver’s financial district.
The project involved taking the eight-story, 110,000-square-foot office building and giving it a façade redesign and reconstruction, a complete remodel of all building common areas, along with extensive upgrades to the building’s mechanical systems. With these updates, the building qualified for LEED® certification and now has a clean contemporary aesthetic that complements the surrounding neighborhood.
CENTRIA’s Formawall® Dimension Series® was selected for the Larimer Corporate Center project due to its outstanding performance, as well as its superior benefits in terms of aesthetics and sustainability. Also, because the project was a retrofit, a critical component of the product - intrinsic in metal as a building product in general and Formawall Dimension Series in specific - was its ease of installation and constructability. With many other building materials, the building owner and/or occupants are often required to vacate the building, resulting in lost productivity and profitability. However, CENTRIA’s metal wall panels provided the building team with the ability to schedule construction with minimal impact to the tenants working inside during the renovation.
In terms of performance, Formawall Dimension Series is the only wall system that provides both advanced thermal efficiency and moisture control in a single panelized component. Based in the sound scientific principles and rigorous testing of CENTRIA’s Advanced Thermal and Moisture Protection (ATMP) technology, Formawall Dimension Series provided the building team with trouble-free insulated metal composite panels installed outboard of the building’s metal studs for improved thermal barriers and moisture protection.
This wall panel system also provided benefits in terms of aesthetics. The integrated wall components and the system’s virtually unlimited possibilities in form, color and texture were important in achieving the building’s sleek new look. Formawall Dimension Series enabled the architects to create an innovative, elegant exterior, reflecting the energy of the cutting edge companies doing business inside.
In keeping with the project’s emphasis on sustainability, Formawall Dimension Series is Cradle to CradleCM Certified at the Silver Level. In fact, it was the first exterior building product to receive Cradle to Cradle® Certification.
The project architect was Klipp Architects of Denver, CO. The CENTRIA products dealer/installer was A-1 Glass, Inc. of Denver, CO. The contractor was J.E. Dunn Construction of Denver, CO. The project was completed in March 2009.
CENTRIA products used on the Larimer Corporate Plaza included: