Westlake Center Mall Skylight Consulting

• Location: 400 Pine St Seattle, WA 98101

  

• Project Type: Consultation
• Project Status: Completed
• Products Used:

Mall Skylight Consulting Survey

Westlake Center is a four-story shopping center and twenty-five story office tower in downtown Seattle, Washington. The southern terminus of the Seattle Center Monorail, it is located across Pine Street from Westlake Park, between 4th and 5th Avenues.

To the west of Westlake Center is the main store for Macy’s Northwest. To the east is the flagship Nordstrom store and corporate headquarters. In the surrounding area are dozens of other retailers.

An onsite skylight consulting inspection was made June 6th, 2011 by Skylight Specialists, Inc., represented by Rob Packard.

Skylights of concern on the site are described as Retail, Tower or Monorail:

Tower and Monorail

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1. (2 ea.) Tower Single Sloped Glass Skylight with vertical glazing. 10’ x 100’ nominal.
2. (1 ea.) Monorail Upper Single Slope Glass Skylight. 10’ x 100’ nominal.
3. (1 ea.) Monorail Lower Structural Single Slope Skylight. 10’ x 100’ nominal.

Retail

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1. (1 ea.) Single Sloped Glass Skylight with vertical glazing. 10’ x 125’ nominal.
2. (1 ea.) Single Sloped Glass Skylight with vertical glazing. 10’ x 150’ nominal.
   (19 ea.) Heat and Smoke Vents. solid, 3’ x 4’ nominal.
3. (1 ea.) Ridge Glass Skylight. 8’ x 145’ nominal.
4. (1 ea.) Acrylic Barrel Vault. 5’ x 81’ nominal.
5. (1 ea.) Atrium. 14’ x 26’ nominal.

Our Skylight Consulting Inspection Found:

Tower Skylights: Fairly decent shape, showing signs of slight wear on butt joint glazing. Wet seal recommended if overhead glass is leaking. Glass appears in good shape. One piece on the vertical appears to have been replaced previously.

Retail area: The half-round barrel vault is showing signs of wear. The skylight is located over an exterior portion of the mall and should last a minimum of five years without repairs or replacement due to its location.

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1. Retail area: The most immediate concern is that water is appearing in the interior upper floors. It is penetrating through steel columns in several locations. Picture shows a horizontal steel beam intersecting the column, allowing water to exit to the interior. Water is traveling farther down columns to lower areas, also.
2. Retail area: Picture shows roofing terminating at an exposed beam. Repairs should be immediate and require a specialized crew that can do repairs on metal roofing and/or skylights. Ridge peak has horizontal cables in place for safety tie-offs.
3. Retail area: Many locations have failed insulated units showing moisture in-between the glazing. Ten units should be replaced now; more in the next five years.
4. Lower monorail skylight has broken glass, apparently from falling debris from the monorail. This is a major safety concern. Mall management has replacement glass on hand and needs someone to install the glass. Blocking the pedestrian sidewalk completely while work is being done would require city permits, etc.
5. Upper monorail glass shows some gaskets pushing out from between the framing and glass.