From Square to Sophisticated

 Two local companies have done what many thought was impossible: they dramatically transformed a garage into a cutting edge corporate office and they did it without spending a lot of money.

"The building that was there was not exactly an award winner, and I can say that because our firm designed it," said Larry Milles, principal of Gray Design Group. The existing building was a plain, concrete block building. It was designed as a low, low cost vehicle emissions testing building - essentially a garage with two drive-through bays with a small attached office and waiting area. Once Missouri ended its vehicle emissions testing program, it seemed as if no one could figure out how to reuse it, despite its good location in Chesterfield Valley. No one, that is, until CB&E Construction Group.

According to Gus Cervetto, principal of the CB&E Construction Group, most people wanted to tear the building down and start anew, but CB&E rejected that on the basis of how damaging that would be to the environment.

"We are very big believers in sustainable construction - we did the very first green building project in Missouri years ago - and we knew that the energy we would use in knocking the building
down would be too great. The problem we were struggling with was what we could do with it that wouldn't end up looking like a gas station ... without the gas pumps," Cervetto explained.

CB&E, then a tenant in someone else's building, wanted a headquarters building of their own, something cutting-edge that would make a dramatic statement and define their corporate image. In the end, they concluded that the plain block emissions testing building had the potential to do that. The way in which they accomplished the transformation has become a case study for one of the prime materials used, Reflectit by Dryvit.

"Since CB&E wanted to use it as a corporate office building, the building needed to convey an image of quality and sophistication. We also wanted to make it appear bigger from the street. We came up with the idea of the curvilinear facade, what Gus calls a 'swoosh wall', which really catches the eye and give is a frontage elevation about three times larger than the original," Milles said.

The curved wall is now the dominant element of the building. "That was the look we wanted - something different from the plain jane masonry buildings and concrete tilt-up that are common in Chesterfield Valley," he said.

Curved elements are more complicated that straight line elements, "but we were very budget conscious," Milles said. "We considered stone panels or metal panels, but they were too expensive. We ended up using Reflectit, which is a metallic coating. If you didn't know differently, you might think there were metal panels on the wall. Even if you stood right up next to it and rubbed your hand on it, you would think it is metal, but is not," he said.

"It is an economy material, but doesn't look it," he said. Using Reflectit, he said, "is an affordable way to upgrade facade of building. This is what everyone is looking for - how to recycle, how to create value in affordable way, and still have a little flair and cutting edge. This is a high-tech look that doesn't cost an arm and a leg."

T.J. Wies Contracting built up the curved wall. In order to get a uniform appearance with the existing concrete block building, they built stud walls over the existing block walls and installed DensGlass Gold exterior sheathing. They installed Dryvit's Outsulation exterior insulation and finish system to the sheathing and the metal framing for the curved wall and applied 1,200 square feet of Reflectit finish to the resulting facade.

This application of Dryvit was a little outside the usual, however. "We've used Dryvit lot - we've used it on senior living, office, and retail facilities," Milles said. On most buildings, it is a monolithic applique of color and texture, but for CB&E, "we scored the facade to look like panels," he said.

Milles said the CB&E building was the first time his firmed had used Reflectit, and he thinks it is the first time the finish has been used in St. Louis.

The changes to the interior of the building were less dramatic. "We used the existing walls, although we did cut a new window," Milles said. The garage bays became a central work area surrounded by work stations and private offices. And the drive through doors? Those are now big windows that let plenty of light into the central work area.

"This is the first time that I took a building that I thought I would never come back to and totally redo it," Milles said. "If we were to design a building for them from scratch, we probably would have done something like this - put money in the front to attract attention and get people through the door, and not so much money in the back."

Milles pointed out that the architectural vernacular of Chesterfield Valley is tilt-up behind retail. In that context, the CB&E building stands out. The design "is a marketing concept," he said. "Other buildings are candidates for this too," he added.

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