UBS Warburg Expansion

Cost: $100 million

Development Team

Owner: UBS Warburg LLC
Project Management: Turner Construction Co., NYC
Architect: Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, NYC
Structural Engineer: Thornton-Tomasetti Engineers, NYC
Mechanical, Electrical and Plumbing Engineer: Cosentini Associates, NYC
Geotechnical Engineer: Langan Engineering and Environmental Services PC, NYC
Telecommunications Consultant: Walsh-Lowe & Associates, Inc., Stamford, Conn.
Excavation Contractor: Thalle Construction Co., Briarcliff Manor, N.Y.
Steel Contractors: Berlin Steel Construction Co., Kensington, Conn. and Cives Steel Co., Lido Beach, N.Y.
Electrical Contractor: Belway Electrical Contracting, Elmsford, NY
Mechanical Contractor: Harry Grodsky & Co., Inc., Springfield, Mass.
Drywall Contractor: A&A Drywall & Acoustics, Inc., Milford, Conn.
Foundation and Superstructure Concrete: Tri-Star Building Corp., Pleasantville, N.Y.
Scaffolding & Hoisting Contractor: Regional Scaffolding & Hoisting Co., Inc., Bronx, N.Y.

It's the largest trading floor in the world - 54 ft. high, 225 ft. wide and the length of two football fields - and it's in Stamford, Conn.

The trading floor of the UBS Building is on the top floor of an eight-story building that was originally built in 1998 as The Swiss Bank Center. A 23-month, $100 million expansion of the building, now headquarters of UBS Warburg LLC, was completed in May 2002.

Among other accomplishments, the makeover added another 120 ft. to the giant trading floor.

Even though some trading desks were no more than 3 ft. away from the new construction, the expansion was done without ever slowing the bank's operations. A temporary wall was built at each floor to separate the bank work from the construction work. At the tie-in location there were an operating trading floor, a data center, offices and a parking garage.

Most of the work was done at night and on weekends. "When a trading floor and data center are in immediate proximity, construction preplanning is taken to a new level," said Jeff Mattson, project superintendent for Turner Construction Co., which provided management of the project.

With three basement levels extending 30 ft. below the water table, Thalle Construction Co. of Briarcliff Manor, N.Y., which did the excavation, had to work hard to keep water out of the hole while the new foundations were poured.

The top four floors of the building are structural steel. Beam pockets for the steel connections at each floor were cut into the building. Many of the connections were directly over windows where trading floor desks were located. At every floor, lasers were used to align the new walls, ceilings and floors with the old ones.

The connecting shift crew worked for three months doing selective demolition and extensive welding to allow the building to accept the new structural steel. It required 54 connections to the existing building plus 27 additional connections at the curved roof. Once the connections were in place, the steel erection for the extension, done by Berlin Steel Construction Co. of Kensington, Conn., and Cives Steel Co. of Lido Beach, N.Y., proceeded quickly.

The new interior of the trading floor was completed by fully scaffolding the trading floor ceiling with a hung platform, which was set in steps to follow the curve of the ceiling. Open-ended walls were installed using conventional scaffolding, which allowed the trading floor's double-access floor system to be simultaneously installed with the ceiling.

During this phase of the process, there were 380 construction workers on site.
Dismantling the temporary wall and scaffolding took six weeks.