The David Geffen Hall, a concert hall located in Manhattan’s Upper West Side Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, went through a complete renovation. The $550-million renovation involved acoustic and aesthetic improvements, reconfiguring the stage, some seating, and balcony seating to take advantage of the entire stage. Renovations also included doubling the size of the main lobby and creating a new welcome centre.
Walters Group and Metropolitan Walters were involved early in restoring this heritage landmark, providing the surveying and model sequencing frequently used to communicate construction plans.
The existing building, a combination of poured-in-place concrete and structural steel, had to be considered in the new renovation design. Based on the limitations of the current sections, the only solution to delivering a new structure within an existing building was to design and construct the new hall with structural steel.
Based on this approach, Walters successfully supplied and installed 850 tonnes of structural steel for the skeleton structure, monumental stairs, mass dampeners, deck grading, and handrails.
Throughout the pandemic, Walters relied heavily on virtual communication with Metropolitan Walters, our partners in New York.
The most complex part of the project involved the attic. Retrofitting around existing segments imposed many constraints, including limited access to welding steelwork. So, the team developed a solution to design connections and through-bolts that would securely join the structural steel to existing concrete beams.