Western Specialty Contractors Branches in San Francisco, CA and Cleveland, OH are ending the year’s fourth quarter on a high note, with each receiving a top industry award. 

In October, Western’s San Francisco Branch was named a 2021 International Concrete Repair Institute (ICRI) Project of the Year Award Finalist (Historic Category) for renovation and repurposing of the SMUD Museum of Science and Curiosity in Sacramento, CA. Western’s Cleveland Branch was honored in December with the Institute of Real Estate Management (IREM) Northern Ohio Chapter’s Industry Partner of the Year Award. 

Here are more details about each award:

2021 ICRI Project of the Year Award Finalist

Located on the banks of the Sacramento River at 400 Jibboom Street, the SMUD Museum was originally built in 1912 as a power station for the Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E). By the 1940s, the facility was only being used for test purposes, as it had become an unofficial tent city during The Great Depression. For the next 50 years, the Beaux-Arts-style building went through numerous changes in ownership and uses and fell into disrepair. 

In 2014, funding was finally in place to renovate/repurpose the historic building into a premier center for science education. Plans included stabilizing and renovating the structure; adding a two-story, 22,000-square-foot addition for a lobby, classrooms, offices and a café; and building a 110-seat planetarium with a hemispheric dome. The overall goal was to retain as much of the original power plant’s structure and architecture as possible while using modernized products and techniques to restore and protect it from future damage. 

Serving as the repair contractor on the project, Western Specialty Contractor’s San Francisco Branch repaired the building’s heavily spalled and cracked concrete walls; and rebuilt several horizontal grooves, arches and cornices. Over 5,000 square feet of spall repair and approx. 3,000 linear feet of crack repair was performed on the building. 

Once the concrete repairs were made, Western’s team applied a corrosion inhibiting impregnation coating to the concrete walls to form a protective layer on the steel reinforcement surface. The building’s entire facade was then coated with a one component, penetrating, adhesion-promoting primer, then two coats of an elastomeric, crack-bridging, anti-carbonation, acrylic protective coating. 

Western’s restoration experts also masterfully retrofitted/restored the building’s damaged cartouche to its original artistry, which featured a circular medallion held up by two male figures and a base elaborately decorated with a fruit, vegetable and leaf motif. 

IREM Northern Ohio Chapter’s Industry Partner of the Year Award

Western’s Cleveland Branch was honored in December with the IREM Northern Ohio Chapter’s Industry Partner of the Year Award. 

Established in 1933 to establish a reliable, objective system of identifying quality property managers, today IREM is the nation’s source of educational and professional recognition for all types of income-producing property managers. 

IREM’s Industry Partners program is designed to foster professional relationships between chapter members and reputable service providers in the local area. This program offers the service provider community the opportunity to participate in chapter activities, and at the same time, help chapter members serve their clients and employers via recommendations of quality vendors.

Western’s Cleveland Branch is an active associate member of the organization. This year, the Branch delivered a 90-minute presentation on facility maintenance to organization members, plus sponsored and attended many of the organization’s fundraisers and events.