Hudson’s Site Detroit: How Vinyl Expansions Expanded Possibilities

Travel to downtown Detroit, Mich., right now, and you’ll find the city is jam-packed with development projects — just about every few blocks, you’ll spot another massive building being updated or overhauled. One of the largest and most ambitious of these is Hudson’s Site, comprising a skyscraper, a wide retail/office building and an outdoor plaza between them. In total, the development spans 1.5 million square feet across an entire city block.

With both commercial and residential areas being built within Hudson’s Site — and plenty of long, curved, open-concept spaces — this project was in need of code compliance accessories that were fast, reliable and flexible. That’s where Trim-Tex came in; our 093V Expansion and Fire Rated 093X-V Expansion beads were brought in by the truckload, perfectly suited for the project’s many and various control/expansion joints.

Watch the video below and read on to find out why one drywall finisher from contractor Barton Malow called Trim-Tex’s expansion beads “superior to any of the other products.”

Expand the Boundaries of Commercial Construction | Expansion Bead Case Study | Hudson's Site Detroit

The project: a new vision for the heart of Detroit

In many ways, the story of Hudson’s Site is the story of Detroit in miniature. The original Hudson’s department store began construction in 1891, and for nearly 100 years, it was a staple of Detroit retail and a renowned shopping destination for tourists. The store would see major expansions and, eventually, major declines. In 1983, Hudson’s closed for good, and in 1998, the historic building was imploded. For many years, Woodward Avenue’s entire 1200 block stood vacant.

With a centralized location in downtown Detroit and generations’ worth of name recognition, the new Hudson’s Site redevelopment is primed to make a major impact. The tower side of the project, on its upper floors, will include 90-100 luxury apartments with unbeatable views of the city, and the rest of the tower will be home to a five-star hotel. The other building (where we visited) is even more ambitious — it will include shopping and retail on its lower floors, an event hall and meeting center above that and, for the upper half of the building, ultramodern office spaces. In the center of the building is a gorgeous, circular atrium with a huge skylight the bathes the area with natural light (pictured below). Altogether, this development is a bold vision for both life and commerce in the heart of Detroit.

The solution: ‘superior’ 093V Expansion & Fire Rated 093X-V Expansion beads

A control joint is required where a wall or partition runs, uninterrupted, for more than 30 feet. For the vast, open-concept spaces constructed for Hudson’s Site, these control joints were required all over the place. Additionally, in commercial construction like this, you’ve got code requirements to install materials that will stop the spread of smoke and fire. So Barton Malow — the contractor responsible for the interior buildout on the project, from steel studs to drywall finishing — needed solutions for both of these building requirements. Even better if they could kill two birds with one stone.

Trim-Tex’s vinyl expansion beads were selected throughout this development for a few major reasons. First, because of the vinyl materials, these beads are flexible and adaptable — perfect for curved surfaces like those found in the extra-challenging circular atrium, where 093V Expansion was used to tie together fiberglass panels butting against drywall (pictured above). And, unlike fire caulks, these beads stay flexible for the lifetime of the structure, accommodating ⅜” of controlled building movement.

Secondly, the Fire Rated Expansion was able to take care of both control joint and code compliance requirements in a single step, with no extra backing materials needed. (This bead, like all our fire rated drywall accessories, is outfitted with an innovative strip of intumescent tape that expands to 30 times its size when exposed to extreme heat, choking off fire and smoke from being able to pass through these wall joints.) Hudson’s Site contained many walls that needed firestopping materials installed, especially in stairwells, elevator lobbies and any wall butting up to an electrical room. For a project this size, the old methods of firestopping, with mineral wool or gypsum strips installed behind a control joint, would have taken ages and cost Barton Malow up the nose. 093X-V Expansion sped things up dramatically, reduced the labor needed and created fire rated assemblies that will last for the long haul.

And third, for Barton Malow Drywall Finisher Mike Warner, the biggest difference between Trim-Tex’s expansion beads and what he’d previously been using was their durability. He was used to using metal control joints, and especially on a big commercial job like this one, pieces of bead get dropped, get stepped on, get bent during transportation all the time. If that happened to a metal expansion bead, that would mean the pieces were ruined right away. With these vinyl beads, not at all.

“The Trim-Tex products are superior to any of the other products,” Warner told us. “In the past, we would use the metal, which, you waste a lot of it. It kinks a lot … [Trim-Tex's expansion bead] is definitely quicker to work with, because you’re not fighting with the metal. Say you set a piece down and someone accidentally steps on it, or you drop it and it kinks it — it’s pretty much garbage once it’s kinked. Your product does not kink.”

Overall, Trim-Tex’s two vinyl expansions saved Barton Malow crews countless hours, labor costs and wasted materials — it just goes to show: choosing the right solution for the right job goes a long way.

Thank you to Mike Warner and the entire Barton Malow operation for showing us around the impressive Hudson’s Site development. We can’t wait to see this ambitious vision for the heart of Detroit to succeed, and are honored that Trim-Tex’s solutions could be one small part of bringing this vision to life!

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