UT Health UCT Tower Vertical Expansion

The University Center Tower (UCT) building consists of a five-story parking garage and a 26-story office tower built in 1973. The sixth floor above the garage acts as a roof and is not accessible by vehicles for parking. The vertical expansion project, designed by WHR and Walter P Moore, consists of adding two stories to create approximately 40,000 SF of leasable medical office space above the existing top garage level. Also, the parking garage roof will be converted to a new parking level with 53 additional covered parking stalls.

The column layout supporting the proposed addition was selected to minimize the need for structural upgrades to the existing framing of the UCT parking garage roof. Additional analysis of the gravity load carrying capacities of the existing roof structural framing will be undertaken as the design progresses.

Walter P Moore is providing the structural design of the new addition, structural modifications design, garage roof strengthening, as well as new traffic coatings and roof waterproofing design. We are also designing the new vehicular traffic circulation plan and parking layout improvements.

By expanding the addition from 16,000 SF to almost 40,000 SF, we were able to provide the owner with more than double leasable office space. Current tenants of the tower are already anticipating making a switch to the new addition, therefore allowing the owner to renovate different areas of the current tower.