APC Services of New England upgrades former manufacturing mill - Monarch Lofts in Lawrence
February 14, 2013 - Construction Design & Engineering
New England's heritage of textile manufacturing mills has left the area with a number of buildings that are being renovated for today's usage. The city's Monarch Lofts is an example.
The old brick mills are almost all built on river's edge, with large windows that provide for natural light, have 16 ft. ceilings and because they were designed for the open space needed for the looms, are relatively easy to convert to condominiums and apartments. With the Merrimack River flowing next to the old brink mill, it is easy to appreciate the draw to such a residence.
To update the old mill into its current state, APC Services of New England performed a variety of tasks:
In preparation for the actual build out of the units, every piece of exposed structural steel was treated with an intumescent coating for fire protection.
The attached four-story building that was the headquarters for Honeywell had significant painted images on the brick exterior that had to be chemically stripped.
All exposed sprinkler piping was surface prepared and painted black.
On the outside of the building, the many yards of exterior trim along the roofline had to be stripped, cleaned, prepped and then painted, all while working from an industrial lift some 85 feet above ground level. The lift was repositioned constantly to enable the exterior wood trim around the many windows to be prepped and painted.
The six-story mill building was renovated into 204 units and common area with hundreds of all new doors, door and window frames, walls and ceilings, baseboard and miscellaneous trim, stairs and railing all being painted to the Architects specifications. Wall coverings were installed in the lobbies and the elevator vestibules.
APC Services of New England performed these tasks over a period of more than two years with excellent results.