Alpharetta City Center Parking Deck

The City of Alpharetta wanted a parking deck that matched the Georgian architecture of its new city hall, on a fixed budget. Metromont cast the deck in 99 precast pieces, among them 27 architecturally detailed panels and 61 flat panels. The panels carry 11,000 square feet of thin brick. Advanced supplied the thin brick formliner and the thin brick.

The brick sits as insets in buff colored concrete that was exposed and sandblasted to read as the cast stone on city hall. The concrete around the brick is the joint and the trim in one pour, which is the matrix decision this deck gets right: a light matrix against a red brick so the coursing and the stone banding both read from the street. The entry and exit towers carry a reveal pattern that reads as cut limestone, a precast cornice caps the deck, and cast-in medallions sit in the brick field and in shadow boxes in the spandrels.

A panelization scheme with a joint pattern that removed the individual spandrel panels on columns cut the number of facade pieces by 30 percent. The heaviest panel weighed 22,862 pounds.

Honorable mention for all precast parking structure, 2016 PCI Design Awards. Best parking structure, 2018 PCI Design Awards. Project facts and photographs from the PCI project profile.