Chiller Plant Construction Site
The Poison Plume Now we jump back up to September of 1993.  By then HH&N had been underway for three months.  The concrete column fiasco was in full bloom.  Across the street the chiller house excavation was nearing completion.  The cut-off wall subcontractor, Spencer, White & Prentis of Virginia, had […]

RSA Tower – The Chiller Dirt Problems

Tower Precast Panels
The Background The Ralph Draughon Library at Auburn University is the design of Davis, Speake and Associates, Architects of Birmingham.  Well, in 1983, Auburn decided to double the library in size and PH&J got the job.  Our then new field man, David Atkins, drew the assignment during construction, and thus he tumbles […]

RSA Tower – The Castone Corporation

CCC Lobby
The CCC, as we called it, was actually an arm of Club Corp of America, headquartered in Dallas, and which owned some 230 national and international private clubs.  In 1992, when the Tower episode began, CCC was located on the top (3rd) floor of the old Pizitz Department Store building […]

RSA Tower – The Capitol City Club

The RSA Tower rises out of downtown Montgomery, but is not in the “Capitol Complex” as are all of Bronner’s other buildings.  Thus, it faced no traditional height restriction, and no concern that its exterior lighting might overshadow the Capitol.  It was to be Dr. Bronner’s crowning construction achievement.  Because […]

RSA Tower – The Building Concept

radio_tower
WSFA As the anticipated mass and height of the Tower became generally known, a hue and cry rose from a very specialized group of citizens connected with line-of-sight broadcast systems – radio, television and radar.  Suddenly yours truly was beset with technicians bitterly complaining that we were going to interrupt […]

RSA Tower – The Airways Split Asunder

Tower J Cap Casting
Dropping Into The Abyss Sonny Wadsworth’s demo work proceeded without notable incident until he started on the large United Lighting Company showroom, which fronted on Madison Avenue.  The structure came down easily under the onslaught of Sonny’s large D-8 Caterpillar tractor.  The D-8 Cat was pushing debris about on United’s […]

RSA Tower – The Advance Package

RSA Sign
This episode concerns the dozen or so construction job signs that identified the various RSA building sites along Monroe Street early in 1995. Goodwyn-Mills jobs and Watson-Watson jobs as well as PH&J jobs. All of the signs followed the State Building Commission format and each one included a panel which denoted […]

RSA Tower – Surreptitious Sign Changes

Tower Chiller Yard
Dr. Bronner wanted his building to appear grand at street level on all four sides of the block.  The Tower did not have a rear side, and its design precluded rooftop equipment.  Of course, we could not avoid a loading dock and service entrance, but the required emergency generators, huge […]

RSA Tower – Remote Chiller Plant

Tower Show Column
The revived Huber-Hunt Dallas Branch, with no reservoir of experienced personnel, had much difficulty in finding a qualified person to head-up its new Montgomery job.  As project manager, they sent in a brusque, rough and tumble man named H. R. (Sonny) Phipps from HH&N’s California Branch.  Phipps blew into town […]

RSA Tower – Off To A Bad Start

Head Down
As 1994, ‘95, and ‘96 rolled by, Huber, Hunt & Nichols’ attempts to complete the job became ever more desperate and pathetic.  By 1996 the RSA’s big-time commercial tenants, Morgan-Keegan, AmSouth Bank and Club Corporation of America out of Dallas were all suffering delayed occupancy, and the air was thick […]

RSA Tower – No Turn For The Better

Natural Gas
Even the gas pressure posed a problem.  Club Corp demanded gas cooking equipment in their new facility, and we undertook a complex study to determine if the low pressure gas available in that part of the city could reach the 21st Floor.  Finally the engineer’s ruling came down that it […]

RSA Tower – Natural Gas Triumph

The Lower Monroe development began with intent to provide an office building, an outlet mall, a child care center and a parking deck.  The arrangement envisioned at that time placed the eight-story parking deck in the block directly in front of the Tower.  The two massive structures side-by-side that way […]

RSA Tower – Lower Monroe Scheme

Tower Second Death Clipping 1
Williams On September 2, 1994, when the structure had reached 16 stories, one Kenneth Williams fell to his death down the main elevator shaft.  At that point the safety platforms in the shafts had been removed to allow installation of the elevator separator beams.  The wide-open shafts were guarded on […]

RSA Tower – Fatal Elevator Shaft

In January of 1996 Ron Blount, the quintessential Huber-Hunt advocate, finally admitted he was sorry he had ever recommended that company.  That month he wrote to R.G. Hunt, declaring that the Tower project in Montgomery “is on the verge of becoming a nightmare” (I thought it already was).  The bond […]

RSA Tower – Extrication From The Morass

One of the duties an architect has in connection with a major project is to inveigle or otherwise pacify the neighbors around the construction site.  Goodness knows, they are grossly impacted by vibration, noise, dust and traffic.  We knew this would be especially true at the Tower site because of […]

RSA Tower – Controlling The Car Wash

The general contractor was Huber, Hunt & Nichols of Indianapolis, the 14th largest contractor in the nation in 1993.  HH&N thought it could run roughshod over the small town hicks, and to a large extent it did.  As you will see, the plethora of problems they created were exacerbated by […]

RSA Tower – Construction Overview

Tower Basement Columns
The Bulk Plant Lynn Blackburn, our structural consultant on the project, is an awfully conservative engineer in his own right, but I probably pushed him even further in that direction when in one of our early planning conferences, he asked me how much sway we would allow the building to […]

RSA Tower – Concrete and Column Problems

Tower Night Lighting
The Christmas Tree Contest There’s one thing you can say for sure about David Bronner–you never know what he’s going to think up next.  Who could have anticipated this Christmas tree thing or where it would lead. At the end of November of 1993, the RSA Union concrete frame was […]

RSA Tower – Christmas Challenges

Doug Williams
As the Tower job endured one disaster upon another, good guy Doug Williams, who headed the Dallas Branch, kept assuring us that his company would make things right.  Neither he nor we had any use for his new assistant Mark Lavoy, who made most of the overview trips to Montgomery. […]

RSA Tower – Changing of the Guard

Tower Park
Directly across Monroe Street from the Tower is a half-block of open grass area bordered by a huge oval sidewalk, and flanked at the center of the far side by a large waterfall.  The waterfall has the letters “RSA” emblazoned behind the plunging water.  It makes a very impressive forecourt […]

RSA Tower – Art For The Park

Tower Burnt Can Lobby
From the outset of his crusade to upgrade Montgomery’s downtown, David Bronner felt that a reasonable complement of art, fountains and other embellishments were necessary to produce the image he sought.  Beginning with the RSA Plaza and the Alabama Center for Commerce, he had PH&J join force with Jean Belt […]

RSA Tower – Art Asunder

Tower Amsouth Sign
The Deal Dr. Bronner started negotiations with AmSouth Bank to become a tenant in the Tower early in 1992, and was swapping drafts of a Letter of Intent by late February. The early deal called for a 20-year lease with two 5-year options held by the bank. AmSouth was to […]

RSA Tower – Amsouth Bank

…as viewed from Dexter Avenue, the endeavor which neigh consumed five years of my life. When construction was well under way, FAA reversed its prior approval and declared the structure would be in the Maxwell glide path. But for a relocation of primary aviation to Dannelly Field about that time, […]

RSA Tower