Restoring One Thousand Ocean condominium in Florida

The luxury 10-storey One Thousand Ocean condominium is undergoing an extensive restoration project with the help of Scanclimber mast climbers in Boca Raton, Florida, USA.

One Thousand Ocean condominium

One Thousand Ocean is a 10-storey exclusive condominium representing the finest waterfront living in Boca Raton, Florida. This modern building has a curved nautical shape and it is located on a beautiful peninsula, giving residences panoramic views over the Atlantic Ocean and the city of Boca Raton. The apartments’ prices range from $3 million to $15 million, with living spaces from 2800 to over 8000 square feet and private terraces of approximately 1200 square feet.

The Work Site

The One Thousand Ocean building is undergoing a large scale, 1 ½ to 2 years, restoration project with Florida-based Waterfront Services Inc. as the main contractor.

The restoration work was commissioned to be performed with minimal disturbance to the residents. Additionally, the work site has severe access issues since there is very limited operational space available on site. Boom lift use is very limited in the area and most of the goods/materials have to be lifted with a tower crane or forklifts.

At one Thousand Ocean facades Waterfront Services decided to use primarily mast climbers from Sunbelt Rentals because:

1. the contractor needed more lifting capacity than swing stages could provide
2. on top of the building there are penthouse apartments and the contractor didn’t want to create any annoyance or disturbance to the penthouse residents/balconies (which couldn’t be avoided using swing stage platforms and their rigging systems). With mast climbers access was possible due to their small footprint and ground up construction.
3. the area surrounding the building is very tight and limits the access space.

Mast Climbers at work

During the first phase of the restoration project, two mast climbers were used. During the second phase the number was increased to five mast climbers. Additionally, some assisting swing stages were used in one corner of the building, though their use was limited due to the difficulty of coming off the roofs or around the balconies.

Mast climbers were used to perform full concrete restoration work on the building facades, painting and waterproofing on balconies, vertically transporting materials like wall and floor tiles, accessing the balcony ledges, and concrete restoration of the sheer walls. The engineers also used the mast climbers to inspect the quality of work and for communicating with workers.

On the rear of the building, above the third floor, all the balconies angle inwards. Platform extensions were used to work around the angles above the third floor. Outriggers were set at an angle (3ft on one side, 6ft on the other side) to access the balcony ledges. A stair tower was built on the side of the mast climbers to enable access to the mast climbers from the 3rd storey level. The mast climbers were on average about 40ft long and had platform extensions to allow work on the balcony ledges.