Gaillard Center's Big Year

The Gaillard Center Renovation is bound to be the talk of 2014.  It has many Charleston residents awestruck with the elaborate design, detail and planning involved in the $150 million makeover.  Robert Behre wrote in the Post and Courier, "It may be the most expensive building ever built in Charleston that is not technically speaking, a building."  One of the most important factors in this project is going to be time.  They have already estimated that set backs could cost the city up to $2 million in extra costs.  The amount of time that the BAR spent in the review stage set back many of the timelines from the start.  The city has faced other obstacles since then, finding human remains dating back over 250 years, delaying the project for several weeks.  A new turn of events in the weather is not going to help the cause.  The Granite on the base course of the building is being produced by a company in Quebec, Canada where the temperature is hovering around -5 degrees.  The overall building's facade is a mixture of limestone and stucco.  The limestone is being fabricated by a company just outside of Bloomington, Indiana called Bybee Stone that has faced blizzard conditions for over a week and struggled to work.  Bybee Stone Company has been contracted to furnish over 26,400 cubic feet of Indiana Limestone.  That is approx. 2000 tons of natural stone that all has to be hand crafted material.  Bybee has half a dozen of its 71 employees working on the project.  These stonecutters are operating lathes, air hammers, chisels and finishing tools to crave the intricate design elements seen in the image above.  They are currently working on a piece of stone at the main entrance that weighs over 12,000lbs.  I have included some pictures of the limestone fabrication in my blog.  Hopefully, a break in weather will assist in their progress.  I will continue to blog about the Gaillard Center Renovation as the timeline continues to unfold.