Metropolitan Park 4-5
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- Masonry Materials800,000 face brick, 11,000 pieces of cast stone and over 3,000 architectural masonry units and over 100,000 interior CMU's for the parking garage, first floor and penthouse.
- LocationArlington, VA
- General ContractorBalfour Beatty Construction
- ArchitectTorti Gallas - Urban, Inc
- Property OwnerVornado - Charles E. Smith LP
Project Overview
Metropolitan Park 4-5 (known as The Bartlett) is a 23 story luxury apartment complex located in the Pentagon City neighborhood of Arlington. It is conveniently located a block away from the Pentagon City Metro Station and the Fashion Centre at Pentagon city, and is part of the larger six-building planned community of Metropolitan Park. This project consists of 699 apartment units totaling over 700,000 square feet, with 885 underground parking spaces, over 40,000 square feet of retail space, and 45,000 square feet of amenity space.
Four (4) different brick colors, in two different sizes, along with Arriscraft architectural masonry units, cast stone, and four mortar colors were used to create contrast and differentiate areas on the exterior façade. In addition to color and material contrast, each elevation encompasses piers, insets, and setbacks to create shadow lines and give the façade depth. On the upper floors, machine set precast bands, in conjunction with cast stone bands and copings, add an additional dimension to the overall appearance of the building. In total, Calvert Masonry installed over 800,000 face brick, over 11,000 pieces of cast stone, and over 3000 architectural masonry units in the veneer of the building. In addition to the veneer, over 100,000 interior concrete masonry units were installed in the parking garage, first floor, penthouses, and the elevator/stair shafts extending up through the building.
The layout required for this project was exceptionally difficult due to the amount of piers, projections, and insets incorporated into the veneer. The result of these differences in planes is a constantly changing brick face and bond with multiple cavity depths at any given area. This was compounded above the 16th floor, where the building separates into two towers, and steps in over multiple floors, with each section of floors requiring a different layout. An additional function of the building stepping in above the 16th floor was the requirement to re-scaffold the majority of the building from the terraces to the roof decks. Calvert Masonry utilized primarily mast-climbing scaffolds from the ground and 2nd floor terraces to the 16th floor, and a combination of mast-climbing, crank-up, swing, and tube scaffolds from there to the 23rd and 19th floors for the East and West towers respectively.
The schedule for the project posed an additional challenge, with the veneer consisting of only 11 months from start to top-out. Throughout the common floors, Calvert completed a floor every 8 days. The logistics to maintain this pace entailed delivering multiple tractor trailers of material daily, each of which had to be unloaded and almost immediately hoisted to the working floor due to a minimal laydown area.