The University of Alabama’s Smith Family Center for the Performing Arts is currently under construction. It will be the new home for dance, theater, opera, and music performance spaces, including a black box theatre with flexible seating for up to 275, a proscenium style theatre with seating for 350, and a venue specifically designed for dance with seating for 450.
Other features include orchestral pits, deeper stages for ballet performances, and state-of-the-art acoustics.
“This site was challenging.” explains Adam Richards, EPRO’s East Region Manager. “Division 7 was working next to a historic building, so cleanliness of application was a major concern, as well as working in the red clay soils of the site, which would compact very well until the rain came and turned them into a bog. The General Contractor understood the issues and did a great job at solidifying the soils with aggregate, which allowed the Division 7 team to maximize their time on site.”
Division 7 Construction from Birmingham, AL, approached EPRO seeking a composite fluid applied waterproofing solution that would meet and exceed the project’s requirements.
“EPRO was tremendous from a sales perspective,” says James Boozer, President, Divison 7 Construction, the EPRO Approved Applicator.” We knew nothing about the system, and EPRO came down and did training on it, and the team spent the first three days on the job site. My guys were trained to install the system and they were very efficient at it.”
19,000 square feet of E.Protect was applied at the underslab and another 14,000 square feet was applied at the walls. “It was a significant waterproofing project,” adds Boozer. “Some of the pits were 21 feet into the ground.”
E.Protect is part of EPRO’s E.Series line of waterproofing systems. It is compatible with cast-in-place concrete and shotcrete and leverages three key waterproofing materials: High-density polyethylene (HPDE), spray-applied polymer modified asphalt (PMA), and bentonite to create redundancy against a wide range of project conditions and chemical contaminates of concern.
“The redundancy of the system makes a guy like me feel really comfortable,” he says. “It’s a hardy, beefed-up system, yet it goes down easily.”
Boozer communicated that EPRO’s training and expertise demonstrated its commitment to his customers, and he felt that everyone he interacted with went above and beyond.
“The EPRO team is fantastic, right down to everyone behind the scenes in the office,” he says. “They were extremely responsive, and we never had a shipment that didn’t show up right away. I felt like people treated me like I’d been working with them for years - it was amazing.”
The Smith Family Center for the Performing Arts is located on the university’s renovated Bryce Campus. It spans 130,000 square feet and construction is anticipated to be complete in 2024.