On Friday, September 15, a crew of more than 25 worked through the night to raise a 28,000-pound platform 400 feet in the air to rest in place just below the Space Needle’s Tophouse, signaling the official start of the tower’s historic Century Project renovation. Drone footage, ground-shot video and photography captured the groundbreaking hoist, which was managed by 12 independent operators perched atop the donut-shaped platform as it crept its way up the iconic structure.
The platform is an offering from Safway, which provides scaffolding services throughout the U.S. and Canada for the commercial construction of bridges, special events and industrial markets. This project marks a unique application of their Quick Deck product, which can be built off the ground. Hoffman Construction began the scaffold build with the coordinated transport of materials — either through the Space Needle’s elevators or via crane — to the top of the 100-foot level space known as SkyLine. SkyLine, which consists of three rooms jutting out over Seattle Center, served as a base for construction prior to the lift.
Just one week is all it took to get materials in place and build the structure. Now, chained in place at 500 feet, the Century Project marks one of the largest lifts of a Safway scaffold ever completed and, at approximately 44,650 square feet, it’s one of the company’s biggest scaffolds in circumference. From here the process of building out the structure to create an enclosed, weather-safe space for crew to tackle the Century Project renovation will take at least another two weeks.
(more about the Space Needle renovation and construction project...)
