LULA Lift New Construction – Chick-Fil-A – 500 N. Michigan – Chicago, IL

 

In 1946 an entrepreneur opened up the Dwarf Grill in a suburb of Atlanta. This was the start to the Chick-fil-A Empire.  Many years later, we get a phone call from a contractor who was building a new Chic-fil-A on the Mag Mile in Chicago. They wanted to know if we could install a LULA lift in a glass hoistway. We were referred to them by a design team that we worked with on a past project. 

We typically do not install LULA lifts, but this seemed like an interesting project with an iconic brand so we said, yes we can.  We had a great partner with CantonElevator [Eddy, Amy, Jessica(s), Brenna, Rod, Glen, Kathleen and some I am probably forgetting, thank you all!].

Elevator equipment used

            Package provider – Canton Elevator

            Controller – Smartrise

            Door equipment – GAL

            Fixtures – Innovation

 

It all started with a hole in the ground – Back in January we did an owners meeting with the design team, general contractor, reps, etc.  And this is what we saw - the hole was not square, was not correct, and was not lined up with the drawings.  Collectively everyone on the design team, GC, trades and Colley had some work to do.

 

[Elevator pit]

[Elevator machine room]

Steel work – The steel work needed to match up with the pit as well as the building structure.  None of this was easy as we had to make accommodations for the existing conditions.

Elevator work – The steel was up, now it was our turn to install the lift.

Glass work – The glass hoistway looks great on the drawings and renderings, but the crew that put the glass in made their money with this installation.

 

Final product – Take a look at the culmination of the months and months of prelim and onsite coordination.  The project turned out great!

Take away – Every construction/MOD project that isn’t “vanilla” will pit the building owner, GC, CM, trades and elevator contractor against each other, it is the nature of some of the more complicated projects.  The team we had onsite sorted out all of the challenges at this building and did a phenomenal job on the successful installation of the lift. We had a remote machine room, open steel hoistway, COVID and a whole lot of other curve balls thrown our way.  Fourteen Colley Elevator employees had their hands on this project from start to finish; from the first phone call to the final inspection. We had a great elevator project team and a great construction superintendent that worked with us to make this go as smoothly as possible.  

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If you have any questions or would like additional information feel free to contact me at CraigZ@colleyelevator.com or 630-766-7230 ext. 107.

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