While Northern California inches closer to spring, the first buildings of Mill District continue to rise from the ground and take shape.
Currently, the focus is on what crews are calling “concrete cores.” There are two of these four-story cores for each of the three buildings in the Canopy section of the neighborhood; each core contains an elevator shaft and a stairwell.
As of today, the concrete cores for Building C are complete, and crews are readying the forms for the cores on Building B. The third and final pair of cores in Building A—the northernmost of the three buildings—will come last. Each of these cores sit atop the subterranean parking garage crews completed toward the end of last year. All told, the cores will use roughly 300 cubic yards of concrete.
“Finishing the cores is a huge deal,” said Doug Harrington, director of design and construction. “Once they’re done, we can move on to the next phase of the project: steel.”
The steel phase is no joke—in all, Canopy will incorporate 1,751 different pieces totaling 126 tons.
All steel is structural, meaning it is part of the design and essentially will act as metal framing for metal panels, stucco, and wood later in the project. According to Harrington, this steel is being fabricated at Metal Works in Oroville and will be erected by the Rackley Company, based in Orland.
Much like the cores, steel work will be erected by individual building: C first, then B, then A. Harrington said steel work was expected to start sometime around mid-March and stretch until late June or so.
“Once the steel starts going up, you’ll really get a sense of what the buildings will look like,” he said.
While all this work is going on at Canopy, crews will continue to work on public improvements around it. Raingardens and landscaping are scheduled to go in early this spring, and trees will be planted as early as end of this month. Once irrigation is added, the streetscapes will be just about fully functional, another milestone. Slowly but surely, Mill District continues to grow.
