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Federal Reserve Banks on Leonard
Every day trucks deliver tens of millions of dollars of cash and millions of checks to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, headquartered at 411 Locust Street. Leonard Masonry is a team member on a complex project which will help the bank deliver on its commitment to remain in Downtown St. Louis.
As one of 12 Federal Reserve districts, the St. Louis Fed is the financial nerve center for eastern Missouri, western Kentucky, western Tennessee, southern Illinois, southern Indiana and northern Mississippi. The bank here also coordinates the Federal Reserve System’s financial services to the United States Treasury Department.
As a result of the new security mandates and a commitment to remain Downtown the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis has embarked on a $77.8 million renovation and expansion program due for completion in 2009 W. LeGrande Rives, first vice president and COO of the St. Louis Federal Reserve said.
Following 9-11 the federal government beefed up security requirements around regional banks.
“After 9/11, the federal banking system developed a host of new security requirements that all regional Reserve banks had to comply with,” Rives said. Because the bank looms over Downtown streets, Bank officials seriously considered building a new facility elsewhere.Under the construction direction of Volk Construction Company and McCarthy Building Companies, the St. Louis Fed project includes the construction of an off-site materials screening facility, a landscaped pedestrian plaza on the now-vacated 400 block of Locust Street, a new high-security visitor entrance, the purchase of an existing parking garage, and a new six-story addition encompassing 143,893 square feet of office with penthouse and one level below grade, and an unloading facility.
Under the construction direction of Volk Construction Company and McCarthy Building Companies, the St. Louis Fed project includes the construction of an off-site materials screening facility, a landscaped pedestrian plaza on the now-vacated 400 block of Locust Street, a new high-security visitor entrance, the purchase of an existing parking garage, and a new six-story addition encompassing 143,893 square feet of office with penthouse and one level below grade, and an unloading facility.
Wrapping it all up are exterior upgrades emulating the original building’s 1920s-era limestone facade. Leonard has been involved in various phases of the project, including the completed Locust pedestrian plaza. The limestone facade, which offers a unique set of challenges, is part of the work currently being executed by Leonard craftsmen.
The North Building of the original complex was an uninspiring yellow brick and bore no resemblance to the 1926 limestone South Building that it needed to match. In order to create a “twin” of the original building, McCarthy and Leonard needed to modify window openings on the North Building, match the granite foundation and bush-hammered limestone of the South Building, and line up the courses of the cladding with the courses on the other building.
Three truckloads of granite from Cold Springs Granite in Maine and 47 truckloads of limestone from Evans Limestone in Indiana will be used in cladding the North building and the addition.
As a blast-security measure, the Broadway exposure of the North Building was clad in a layer of precast concrete prior to hanging the limestone. Drilling holes for anchors in the concrete as well as some of the block work inside the building had to be accomplished during a late shift in order to eliminate excessive noise in the bank during the work day.