Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, August 19, 1995 TAG: 9508210060
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DAN CASEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
With only 12 days to go before the opening of the much-ballyhooed downtown pedestrian bridge, things are cooking around the skywalk's construction site.
So are the workers.
After weeks of blazing sun, they say conditions in the elaborate glass tunnel linking the Hotel Roanoke with the City Market are almost unbearable.
The $7 million bridge is ventilated, but not air-conditioned. Workers say ceiling fans suck hot air from the structure's heat-absorbing black roof and pump it into the walkway. They compare it to a giant convection oven.
Hundred-degree temperatures inside the structure have been common in recent weeks, causing workers to bring their own giant, portable ventilation fans just to keep air moving. Some have dubbed it the "Roanoke Sauna."
"They say it's climate-controlled," said one worker Friday who declined to give his name. "It's climate controlled, all right. Whatever the climate is outside, it's 10 degrees hotter inside."
Friday afternoon, the temperature in the structure reached 100 degrees on a thermometer posted in the shade. It climbed to 104 degrees Thursday, and was 108 earlier in the week.
The highest temperature recorded inside the structure so far is 110 degrees, said project manager Todd Peacock.
"It's heat gain," said Thomas Partridge, a vice president at Branch Highways Inc., sister company of the bridge's primary contractor. "When you take ultraviolet rays and reflect them through a prism of glass, only one thing can happen: It gets hot."
City officials say cost - and insistence by architects that discomfort could be kept to a minimum - led them to skip air conditioning the walkway.
It was originally estimated to cost $2.1 million, but the price ballooned due to custom materials and tight construction deadlines.
Officials doubt that steamy temperatures will put a damper on the bridge's grand opening, which is scheduled for Aug. 31 at 9:30 a.m.
City Manager Bob Herbert acknowledged that it's warm on the bridge. But he said there's a big difference between working on it all day and spending a minute or two on it to get from downtown to the Hotel Roanoke, which is what most pedestrians will use it for.
"I really think the design and mechanics of the bridge, for putting it up in a 12-month period, is cost-effective. And it will meet the needs of citizens. I don't think people will be lingering in it," Herbert said.
He said he did a round-trip on the walkway Friday and never broke a sweat.
Besides, Herbert noted, it's far cooler during the majority of the year - and this summer has been unusually hot. The bridge will be heated to a "tolerable" level during the winter, he said.
"This is absolutely the worst it's going to be, this time of year," Herbert said.
The bridge was designed by Hayes, Seay, Mattern & Mattern. Architects familiar with the project's ventilation system were unavailable for comment Friday.
The subject arose at a June 27, 1994, meeting, where City Council first got a look at the design.
"It's not air-conditioned," Joseph Stephenson, a Hayes, Seay architect, said in response to a question raised by Vice Mayor John Edwards. "It's ventilated. There'll be a lot of air moving through it. On hot days, it will be warm, but not unbearable."
Don't try to tell that to the construction workers, however.
"You wrote in the paper a few weeks ago that it's a Cadillac," one said Friday, "but Cadillacs have air conditioning. This is more like a Cordoba."
by CNB