[01] THE REQUIREMENTS
Meridian West REIT needed four cars brought to current code and performance without emptying a fully leased building.
The building's original group was installed in 1987 and had reached the point where parts were being sourced from salvage. Door trouble was driving the majority of callbacks, dispatch times were climbing, and tenants on the upper floors were waiting three to four minutes at peak.
The constraint was occupancy. The tower runs at 94% leased with a law firm on floors 14 through 19 and a trading desk that starts at 5am. Ownership set the terms early: no more than one car out of service at a time, no work in the lobby during business hours, and no interruption to the freight car, which handles every tenant move and every delivery in the building.
That ruled out a full group shutdown and a conventional phased schedule both. The job had to be sequenced car by car, with each unit returned to service and tested before the next one came down.
[02] The results
Four cars modernized in a fully occupied tower without a single day of full group outage
[03] CONCLUSION
Cars 1 and 2 are complete and running. Car 3 is in progress, with the group scheduled to be fully turned over in early 2027.
Each car received a new non-proprietary controller, new door operators and hoistway door equipment, new hall and car fixtures, new traveling cables and hoistway wiring, and firefighter service brought current to code. The existing machines were in good condition and were retained after inspection, which held the cost down and shortened the schedule by several weeks per car.
The group was rewired to run as a group again rather than as four cars responding independently, which is where the dispatch improvement came from. Waiting times at peak are now under a minute on the upper floors.
We worked the tower from the top of each car overnight and on weekends where hoistway access was required, and staged all deliveries through the loading dock outside of tenant hours. The freight car never left service.
[04] Testimonial
“Two cars down, two to go, and our tenants have barely noticed. That's not how elevator modernizations usually go in a building like this.”
Doug Herrera
Asset Manager, Meridian West REIT
