AIA Conference on Architecture 2022 McCormick Place Tour

Epstein’s Randy Buescher, Director of Client Services, along with Mike Damore, Epstein Board Member, will lead a tour this Friday of McCormick Place as part of the AIA Conference on Architecture 2022. Randy and Mike will guide the group through the McCormick Place South Hall Expansion and West Hall Expansion to show how they were developed and executed as a DesignBuild project and the structural relationships that made it a success.

Topics covered will include the major challenges in developing and connecting the large expansions to an existing convention center and outline resulting strategies and consequences. They will highlight similarities and differences from their experiences with renovation and expansion of the country's largest business convention center, the Jacob K. Javits Center in New York, New York.

Epstein was part of the FX Collaborative design team for the North Hall project and also as a Joint Venture with FX for the overall Expansion Program Development which included the Truck Marshalling Facility. Epstein served as the Design Architect and Structural Engineer for the Transformer Building as well.

The tour will provide front and back of the house access of the facility, and give visitors insight into what the proportions of meeting rooms to exposition space, food service, and management. They will also explore stormwater challenges, the expansive roof systems added to the convention center, and the subsequent tunnel constructed into Lake Michigan.