GoggleWorks Apartment Project Uses An Unusual Steel Framing Process

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The wraps on the new GoggleWorks apartments on Washington Street in Reading will be long gone by early summer. In the meantime, the $16.7 million building remains swathed in plastic to keep workers warm.

The plastic also has been covering up an unusual construction process based on a metal framing system. Instead of a typical structural steel framework filled in with masonry blocks and wooden planks, it has prefabricated metal framing and walls that stack in place made by ClarkDietrich Building Systems, an Ohio-based provider of steel construction products and services.

Eric Burkey, president of Reading-based Burkey Construction Co., the project’s general contractor, said the walls are set in place and the cold-formed steel joists and metal deck are set before the walls are placed on the floor above. The wall panels literally sit one on top of the other and carry through the overall height of the building.

“This kind of system has been around for a while,” Burkey said. “It just hasn’t been used a lot.”

Read more: http://businessweekly.readingeagle.com/?p=2331

UGI Energy To Be Part Of $1 Billion Pipeline

Spring Township-based UGI Energy Services Inc. has joined with Inergy Midstream LP and Capitol Energy Ventures Corp. to market and develop a $1 billion natural-gas pipeline known as the commonwealth pipeline.

The proposed 200-mile, 30-inch pipeline is expected to be in service by 2015.

Inergy Midstream, Kansas City, Mo., will build and operate the pipeline and be funded equally by the companies.

UGI Energy Services and Capitol Energy Ventures Corp., a subsidiary of WGL Holdings Inc., Washington D.C., are expected to execute the agreements to become anchor shippers on the line.

Read more: http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=368689