by Jeffrey Sauers of Commercial Photographics

Morabito Consultants, a Sparks-based structural engineering firm, along with Powers Brown Architecture, designed Maryland’s first five-story, tilt-up constructed office building. Construction of the 126,283-square-foot office building was completed last year as part of the St. John Properties’ I-97 Business Park Phase III development, a 67-acre business community near the Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport.

The building design utilized a 4+1 tilt-up construction method. The panels were cast and installed in two sets. The panels in the first set are approximately 60 feet tall and 30 feet wide and serve to support all four levels of floor framing. The panels in the second set are 18 feet tall and 60 feet wide and serve to complete the fifth floor.

Morabito Consultants’ tilt-up construction design saved the owner nearly $10 per square foot—approximately $1.26 million in construction costs—as compared to the cost of a standard steel frame building. These savings were obtained through the elimination of perimeter steel, moment frames, and masonry shaft walls.