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Western Specialty Contractors Restores Leaking Roof on Peoria Civic Center

The multimillion-dollar roof replacement was a significant component of the 43-year-old building’s overall renovation

Peoria Civic Center roof restoration — Western Specialty Contractors

Western Specialty Contractors – Peoria, IL Branch recently completed a year-long project to restore the leaking roof on the Peoria Civic Center as part of a larger $45 million facility renovation project.

The multimillion-dollar roof replacement was a significant component of the 43-year-old building’s overall renovation. The entertainment complex, which includes an arena, theater, exhibit hall and meetings rooms, had not been updated in 25 years. Western’s portion of the work included replacing roofs on the theater and meeting rooms.

Western subcontracted with Vac-it-All, Inc. to remove the theater roof’s 35,000-square-foot gravel layer. Western’s roofing experts were then able to tear off and replace wet insulation areas, which totaled about a quarter of the roof. Western then attached a layer of 1.5” Polyiso insulation and ½” gypsum coverboard to its existing BUR roof and new insulation areas to give a clean uniform surface for the coating and enhance the insulation factor of the building.

A base sheet was installed over the gypsum coverboard, then Western’s crews coated the roof with a fabric-reinforced basecoat followed up with a final topcoat, Tremco Alphaguard Bio Plus, to achieve a 30-year warranty. Western also replaced the 18,300-square-foot roof over the meeting rooms.

Additionally, Western replaced damaged 24-gauge stainless counterflashing and installed new 24-gauge stainless drip edge at tear off locations on both roofs. Western also replaced a pair of hatches on the theater roof with Bilco Model F-50TB roof hatches. Midwest Lightning Rods replaced the lightning protection systems on both roofs to complete the project.

Western used its ingenuity and experience to overcome multiple weather challenges that threatened to delay the large-scale project.

“When installing a roof coating, the weather weighs heavily on production, including temperatures of the substrate, dewpoint, humidity and/or moisture on the roof surface,” said Western Project Manager Jared Osterman. “After losing multiple production days due to heavy morning dew or rain from the night before, we began tarping off areas the night before to achieve a dry substrate. We also used a moisture meter to confirm the correct environment to apply the coating during the cooler rainy season. A gazebo was used on the roof to give our workers shade during the hot months when the project first kicked off. We used hot tents on the roof to help keep the buckets of coating material warm during the cool nights.”

Despite the weather challenges, Western was able to complete the project in May 2024, on schedule and within budget to the satisfaction of the Civic Center Authority. Dewberry of Peoria, IL was the architect on the project.