While many municipalities have fallen in love with the rehabilitation and renovation of their historical buildings, the Old West border town of Laredo marries that mindset with its feet planted squarely in the Age of Technology.

As it peers over the border at Mexico, Laredo has enjoyed the fruits of expansion over the past decade as the North American Free Trade Agreement helped swell its population and city treasury with the almost limitless exchange of goods with its neighbor.

With the growth has come the pains that any city experiences in such a boom, including corruption, drug trafficking and an influx of illegal aliens. As a result, the city is welcoming a new $33.7 million federal courthouse featuring five cherry-trimmed courtrooms, five different types of terrazzo flooring and state-of-the-art technology both inside the structure and out.

Sherman-based Mitchell Enterprises Inc. is serving as general contractor for the 120,000 sq. ft. facility, which broke ground in February 2001 and is scheduled for completion in July. The new courthouse will help facilitate the overflowing docket of cases currently moved through the existing courthouse, sometimes at a snail's pace.

The new courthouse will be the crown jewel of Laredo with an exterior of Leander white limestone, generous amounts of curtainwall ringing the rotunda section and a copper roof covering the dome.

But it is also what makes up the interior of the building - specifically the steel frame structure - which sets it apart from nearly every other facility of its kind in the United States. Contained in the large concrete-filled exterior square tube columns is a revolutionary new beam-to-column connection system that makes the facility virtually impervious to such potential threats as bomb blasts or earthquakes.

After the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in 2001 and the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995, engineers, architects and builders have attempted to design structures that can better withstand violent forces.

Based upon research it gained from those events, as well as earthquakes in its home state, Cypress, Calif.-based SidePlate Systems Inc. developed a proprietary engineering technology that can be used in all steel frame buildings for enhanced blast protection and safety.

The General Services Administration, which serves as the U.S. government's builder and caretaker of federal buildings, learned in the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing that structural progressive collapse - not bomb blast pressures and flying debris - was responsible for over 80 percent of the deaths that occurred in that event.

And while the birth of the patented SidePlate technology was in the aftermath of a devastating 1994 earthquake in Northridge, Calif., its unique properties and connection configuration that can tie girders together across a blast-failed column provide the right ingredients to prevent progressive collapse of a structure subjected to terrorist attacks.

Structural engineer and SidePlate Systems president David Houghton said the Laredo courthouse's steel frame structure is designed for both progressive collapse mitigation and for blast-hardened columns.

The steel side plates used in the technology are especially designed to provide the building structure with structural continuity, robustness, ductility and torsional strength against blast pressures by connecting girders on opposite sides of a violently compromised column.

Design enhancement on the Laredo courthouse project was introduced by Steve Punch, who served as structural engineer of record for the project. Punch elected to use SidePlate's hollow column design option, which allowed the designer to fill columns after erection with concrete.
According to Houghton, girder-to-girder structural continuity across a blast-failed column, as well as "hollow column" construction, are not possible with alternative traditional connection systems.

Each plate is made of high-grade steel and, according to published reports, the design of the new courthouse is such that an airplane could be flown through the building and it would not collapse.

In addition to the Laredo courthouse, SidePlate Systems said its proprietary design has been used on many other strategic buildings and specialty structures across the country, including the U.S. Army's new Command General and Staff College in Fort Leavenworth, Kan., the U.S. Navy's Pacific Command Headquarters in Hawaii and Sea-Tac International Airport's new 265-ft.-tall Airport Traffic Control tower and Terminal Radar Approach Control facility in Seattle.

Initial Construction

The project began with removal of several existing foundations on the site. Corpus Christi-based Large and Sons Foundation Drilling Inc. drilled more than 160 piers - averaging in diameter from 24 in. to 30 in. - to a depth of 60 ft.

The courthouse is being constructed in two distinct wings. The north wing features a basement with a foundation of pier caps and structural concrete walls while the south wing has a slab on grade atop piers with columns imbedded as much as 5 ft. deep.

"Once we poured our piers and pier caps, we immediately started with the structural steel," said Mitchell Enterprises superintendent Conrad Qualley. Houston-based Postel Industries Inc. erected the project's structural steel.

"All of those exterior columns for the north wing are embedded in the basement walls and contain the SidePlate technology," Qualley added. "Once the columns were erected through the second floor, we started pouring basement walls. Then came the first floor slab on deck and the second slab was poured. And then came the third."

Each level pour included approximately 18,000 to 20,000 sq. ft. The 40,000-sq.-ft. monolithic roof deck was also poured in one day to a thickness of 6.5 in. "We had two pump trucks pouring from both sides of the building on the roof," Qualley said. "We started that pour about 2 a.m. and didn't finish until 5 the next afternoon."

More than 10,000 cu. yds. of concrete will be used in the facility, supplied by Laredo-based Ingram Readymix Inc. Ramos Concrete of Laredo performed slab placement and finishing while reinforcing steel was placed by Richard's Rebar Placing Inc. of San Antonio.

Interior Opulence

Visitors entering the courthouse through the rotunda will be greeted by 20 exposed columns.
Along the curved walls between the columns will be limestone benches, specially designed to serve as air-conditioning conduits. Linear diffusers will be installed into each of the seats to cool the rotunda on hot, summer days.

On the first level will be an architectural terrazzo floor depicting the Rio Grande as it meanders its way along the Texas-Mexico border. The terrazzo will wind from the first floor of the north wing through the rotunda and then out through the south wing.

Also on first floor are a visitation room for prisoners and their families, two isolation cells, two additional holding cells, a processing room, several offices, locker room areas featuring shower and changing facilities and a state-of-the-art, built-in vault for storing equipment, valuables and firearms.

On the upper levels are five courtrooms complete with judges' chambers, offices, jury rooms and anterooms. There is also a separate room for grand jury deliberations as well as shell space for a sixth courtroom. Courtroom facilities on the second and third floors of the south wing feature a pair of holding cells and one isolation cell. Second- and third-floor courtrooms in the north wing have two holding cells each. Additional holding cells are located on first floor in an area designated for U.S. marshals.

The facility will feature underground parking for just 35 vehicles. Since judges and their highest-ranking staff members will use the garage, the underground facility will boast some of the most up-to-date security systems available.

The workforce at the courthouse was about 150 in late March. But even through the project was about 85 percent complete, Qualley said it had yet to reach peak production.

"We have a lot of finish work to do," he said. "We still have carpeting, access flooring, some ceiling work, some vinyl flooring, all the cell fronts to put in - I would say we haven't reached the peak of construction yet. When we do, I would expect that workforce to grow to at least 200. It will be a big push to the end."