HONORABLE MENTION: High-Rise Category

Sugar Top Resort Facade Restoration

Banner Elk, North Carolina

Submitted by Seager Waterproofing, Inc.

Sugar Top Resort is an 11-story facility constructed with a concrete main frame, aggregate finished precast panels, projecting residential balconies and individual aluminum window/door units. The original structure was built in 1983 on top of a 5800-foot (1768-meter) high mountain deep in the Appalachians. This facility is three football fields long and totals 320 residential units. 

The project is located in Banner Elk, North Carolina, which geographically is a microclimate. The owner has stated that winds have been clocked as high as 180 mph and snow is on the ground every month but July. These conditions are so severe that most doors and windows possessed double units necessary to maintain thermal values. 

Twenty years of abuse have resulted in façade issues on this structure. In general, sealants exhibited both cohesion/adhesion type failure; wall coatings were severely blistered; deck coatings were deteriorating from abuse and concrete substrate spalling; handrails were corroding from inadequate protection; and balconies were ponding water from insufficient slope to drain. Because of this, the owner researched and assembled a strong construction team consisting of a competent engineer, product manufacturer and restoration contractor. Plans were generated, bids were received and the final product and contractor were selected on performance-based criteria. The owner recognized that product quality followed by competency in installation were the ingredients to a successful concrete repair project.

Owner
Sugar Top Resort Condominium Association, Inc.
Banner Elk, North Carolina

Project Engineer/
Designer
Sutton-Kennerly & Associates
Greensboro, North Carolina

Repair Contractor
Seager Waterproofing, Inc.
Greensboro, North Carolina

Material Suppliers
Dow Corning Corporation
Auburn, Michigan

Sika Corporation
Lyndhurst, New Jersey

Guaranteed Supply Company
Greensboro, North Carolina