When the New England Development Co. decided to erect a third parking structure at its Emerald Square shopping mall in North Attleboro, Mass., the owners of the 10-year-old property went with experience. Two covered parking decks had been previously erected at the popular retail center by Unistress Corp. of Pittsfield, but the work had been spearheaded by a general contractor. This time, New England Development turned directly to Unistress, working in partnership with architect Carter & Burgess, Inc., formerly Sumner Schein Architects & Engineers of Cambridge. The project was a single-level structure consisting of one deck plus parking on grade. Unistress and Carter & Burgess collaborated on architectural details, including replicating the design of the exterior spandrel facade. The repeating precast spandrels were finished with a light sandblast and a large bull-nose profile at the top.

The spandrels blended easily with the mall structure itself, whose facade features column-supported precast wall panels. The spandrels on the mall structure had been finished with a white architectural concrete, combined with salmon-colored details. The precast producer/architect teams also delivered enhanced lighting levels in order to improve security for the mall's largely female clientele. The result of the collaboration was a budget-saving deck designed and completed within just six months of a spring bid date.

"Everything went up very quickly - that's the advantage of precast. The work is done under controlled circumstances so your schedule doesn't slip," notes project architect Arthur Pinkham. Unistress produced a total of 90,000 square feet of precast for the structure, including prestressed double tees and partitions. The project offered its share of challenges, including creating a raised pedestrian ramp with landings on a straight slope, in order to meet requirements for a curbed vehicular ramp despite variations in the slope for the ramp and sidewalk.