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SALT LAKE CITY — Jacobsen Construction is the winner of an Excellence in Concrete award for its self-perform crews’ work building Astra Tower, Utah’s tallest high-rise.
The Intermountain Chapter of the American Concrete Institute (ACI) announced Astra Tower as the region’s Excellence in Concrete winner in the Residential Structures category. ACI presented Jacobsen’s Astra Tower concrete team with the award in a celebration this month at the Davis Conference Center in Layton, Utah.
“The tower represents a bold vision for vertical urban living,” ACI said in its video presentation at the awards celebration. “The tower’s scale and precision were made possible through … a disciplined and repeatable concrete pour cycle on every level.”
Jacobsen self-performed the concrete scope of work on the Astra Tower project, ultimately placing more than 35,000 cubic yards of concrete. This required a total of 4,375 truckloads over the course of the project. Crews onsite were able to achieve a six-day turnaround per level during the structural concrete phase of work.
“We’d always known from day one that this is a big project for Jacobsen, a big project for Salt Lake City,” said Doug Carley, the Jacobsen project manager who led the construction, after Astra Tower reached structural completion. “It showed Jacobsen muscle and showed how deep of a company we are to have the (necessary) resources and manpower.”
Rising 40 stories and standing 450 feet tall, Astra Tower is the Utah construction industry’s most ambitious high-rise project to date. The luxury residential tower, which includes 377 units, features expansive amenity spaces that include an outdoor urban park, clubhouse with chef kitchen, work lounge with conference room, full-service fitness center, outdoor pool, rooftop terrace and more. The high-rise was designed and built as a LEED Gold structure that prioritizes water conservation, efficient energy use and air quality preservation. It even features a color-changing light beacon at its top that alerts Utahns to real-time fluctuations in air quality.
“For anyone who works, visits or lives downtown, this high-rise is a true game-changer for Salt Lake City,” Carley said.
At full height, Astra Tower is plumb within half an inch top to bottom — even better than the strict 3/4″ tolerance called for in the project plans. This was due to comprehensive quality control measures undertaken by the jobsite team in collaboration with several surveyors and engineers.
Because of the building’s impressive height, the structure’s vertical plumbness measurements were prone to be very slightly influenced/”drawn” by the sun as the concrete team reached ever greater heights. For example, measuring the building at 8 a.m. and then again at 3 p.m., for example, could result in as much as a 3/4″ difference in measurements. To account for this phenomenon, the team measured the building’s plumbness from top to bottom at the exact same time each morning.
Excellence in Concrete award winners are chosen based on several detailed project criteria centered around innovation and quality. At the awards celebration, ACI praised the Astra Tower team for their “brisk and consistent pace,” as well as their “commitment, precision and craftsmanship.”
“Quality control was a defining achievement of the project,” the industry association said in its video presentation of the Excellence in Concrete award. “Congratulations to Jacobsen Construction and the whole Astra Tower project team for delivering an iconic structure that elevates Salt Lake City’s skyline and community.”
Astra Tower’s Excellence in Concrete win is the project’s fifth construction industry award. The project team has previously been honored with awards from Utah Construction & Design, Utah CCIM, Engineering News-Record and Associated General Contractors of Utah.
