Rebuilding Warehouse, 5 Portland Street
The warehouse at No. 5, Portland Street, Manchester, was built about 90 years ago; and is one of the principal buildings in a street of warehouses. It has a frontage of 72 feet on Portland-street at the front and Hope-street at the back, with a depth of 123 feet from front to back. In December 1927, the directors of the Hollins Mill Company Limited, desired to add two additional stories to the building, and various schemes were submitted for carrying out the work. The loads on the existing floors were found to be exceptionally heavy, being an average of 3 cwt. per super foot, and as the old building was constructed with wood beams carried on Cast Iron columns, with wood joists and boarded floors, it was found that the basement columns had been carrying six times their safe capacity for many years and, theoretically, the whole interior should have collapsed; therefore it was decided entirely to gut the inside of the premises and to rebuild it from the basement foundations with solid steel columns. R S girders and wood joists and boarded floors, and at the same time to add two additional stories to the building.
The contract was let in March, 1927, to Messrs J Byrom Ltd, Bury, and as it was an important factor that the business of the firm should not be interfered with more than was necessary, it was arranged to carry out the alterations in three sections. The anticipated progress of the work on the three sections was charted out and it was expected to take 18 months to carry out the whole of the work, but the change- over of the clients' fittings and stock from section to section took much longer than had been anticipated and the final completion was three months overdue.
The first section, which was at the back of the building fronting on to Hope Street, was begun at the end of March, 1927. A weather-tight screen was erected on each of the existing floors at the end of the first, section, with temporary bridges on each floor to the back staircase landings and the loading stage in Hope Street, This enabled the working arrangement of the business to be carried on without interruption. In the first section, the whole of the back wall was taken out to the ground floor and a large sectional steel window framed between stanchions and girders was substituted. This elevation fronted a street only 23 feet wide with a building opposite which was equal in height to the proposed reconstructed building. Sections of the two buildings were furnished to Messrs Pilkington Limited, St. Helens, who supplied their prism glass so that daylight rays could be carried a minimum of 30 feet back into the building on each floor. In this they have been successful, thus enabling a great saving of electric light on the lower floors during the daytime.
When the second section was begun, the new back section had to be closely sheeted up and the remaining front portion also sheeted off and temporary bridges, 36 feet span, were erected on each floor to give through access between the new and old sections. This temporary work had to have very careful consideration so that none of it fouled the framework of the reconstructed portion and at the same time the gangways had to be sufficiently protected that none of the employees could be injured from falling material, or goods get damaged in transit over the bridge. When the third, and last section was carried out the clients were given just one-half the area of the building with the two additional floors to carry on with, and arrangements had to be made to give them a temporary entrance from the Portland Street front, as it was necessary that the main entrance should be used for the delivery of all the materials. This entrance was only 6ft, 6in. wide between carved door jambs and through it the whole of the old fabric had to be removed and the whole of the new material brought in. This entailed very careful transport arrangements and necessitated much of the material for each day being delivered at night when the ordinary street traffic was much reduced.
Each section had to be completed to the finish of the painting, electric lighting, sprinklers, fire alarms, etc., before handing over to the clients, and temporary racks, tables and counters erected to store goods, etc., while the other sections were being re-built. This meant that the work comprised three complete jobs.
The front, section was the most difficult one to carry out as, in, the original elevation, there were no windows on the fourth floor, this being just below the main cornice. The windows on the third floor were of the Italian Renaissance style, with arched heads and a centre column. It was decided that these arched windows should be taken out and rectangular windows built in their place, and that the upper portion of the wall should also be cut out, under the main cornice to form rectangular windows for the fourth floor. As the main cornice was 4 feet 6 inches deep and overhung the building line by 3 feet 9 inches it will be seen that this problem caused no little anxiety while the work was being executed, but, with care and patience, it was carried out without any signs of settlement at any point. On completion of the facade it was decided to steam-clean the existing stonework, and as it was nearly all of polished ashlar - Darley Dale stone-it cleaned up so well that it was difficult to distinguish the new work from the old. The steam-cleaning revealed carved and moulded detail which had never been suspected by the owners and: the general public and which, no doubt, will soon be hidden again beneath the grime and soot of the Manchester atmosphere.
In the planning of the reconstruction, various improvements were made in the internal arrangements. A new entrance hall was formed, with directors’ offices and board-room opening out from adjacent corridors. The whole of the counting-house was housed on the first floor and each department was arranged down a side of the building, with offices and showrooms to the main front, and display and packing counters at the back; the centre area being taken up with racks carrying large stocks of goods. The floors are designed to carry 3 cwt. per super foot with a factor of safety of four and are constructed of R.S. girders with 11 inch by 3 inch R.D. joists fixed at 15 inch centres, and covered with 1 inch tongued and grooved white boards and 1 inch maple boarding on top and ceiled underneath with " Gyproc” plaster board. In the re-arrangement of the columns, etc., ten were eliminated on each floor, thus giving much better facilities for the arrangement of racks, etc.
A special feature of the building was the greatly increased light obtained in the basement by the enlargement of the basement areas and the provision of improved pavement lights and stall-board lights and the lining of the area walls with white “opalex.” This arrangement has enabled work to be carried out in the front portion of the basement without recourse to artificial lighting on any normal day. The whole building is fitted throughout with Mather and PIatt's automatic sprinklers and the Pearson fire alarms system. The Mansard roof -sides and front portion - are all constructed of armoured tubular flooring, which proved to be a very satisfactory and adaptable material for the purpose. The concrete surface was covered over with two coats of Limmer asphalt. The front portion of the Mansard roof is slated with Buttermere green slates.
A feature of the entrance hall is the solid bronze lift enclosure, which also embodies the bronze memorial tablet, recording the names of the members of the firm who fell in the Great War. The lift enclosures on all the other floors are of the same design but carried out in wrought-iron and painted with metallic bronze paint. The lavatories in the building were rearranged and brought together so that they are over each other on each floor and thus save a considerable amount of valuable floor space over the old arrangement. The whole of the lavatories are carried, out with terrazzo floors, Biancola wall linings and 2 inch Biancola division between WC’s. The building is heated throughout with a central heating apparatus designed to give an even temperature of 66 degrees F. inside when 30 degrees F. outside.
The general contractors were Messrs J Byrom Limited, of Woolfold, Bury, and the sub-contractors were as follows: - Messrs Lambourne and Company Limited, steelwork; Art Pavements and Decorations, Ltd., terrazzo, Etchells, Congdon and Muir Ltd., lifts and enclosures; Saunders and Taylor, Ltd., heating and ventilating; E. O. Walker and Company, electrical work; the Crittall Manufacturing Company Limited, steel windows; the Crittall Manufacturing Company Limited, steel screens to offices; H. H. l\1artyn and' Co., Ltd., panelling and fibrous plaster; Macdougall and Company Limited, oak flooring; Maclean and Company Limited, pavement lights. Henry Tattersall Limited, plumbing and glazing; Thomas Parsons and Sons, paint; Pollard and Company Limited, roller shutters; Luxfer Prism Company, stallboards; William Wadsworth and Sons, electric cranes; F Fearnley and Sons, Gyproc ceiling; Musker Brothers, AT flooring and roof; Bidder Steeplejack Company, steam cleaning; Mather and PIatt Limited, sprinklers; Pearson Fire Alarms Company, fire alarms; Charles Bell and Sons, painting. Mr Arthur Clayton, LRIBA, is the architect. [Builder 28 June page 1172]