Sherman Clay Building
211 Sutter Street

San Francisco, CA

Murphy Burr Curry, Inc. was the engineer of record for the corrosion repairs to the building's existing structural steel. The building is a historic ten-story steel-framed structure constructed circa 1906, with open fronts along two street elevations and non-bearing concrete walls along the property lines. The building is clad with terra-cotta units that are fully grouted with concrete and have brick infill panels between structural steel frames.

The structural steel members along both the Kearny and Sutter Street facades supports the cornice above the 10th floor. Three out of four building columns along Kearny Street below the 10th floor were found to be severely corroded. While the steel frame was marginally safe to resist the imposed gravity loads (the average loss of section varies from 10% to 30% with the corner column being the worst case), it could be severely overloaded during an earthquake resulting in partial building collapse. In addition, severe corrosion has caused the terra-cotta to crack, creating a falling hazard for pedestrians below, thus requiring emergency repairs to the steel frame.

Lewis Restoration and C.E. Toland removed the terra-cotta cladding along Kearny and Sutter Street elevations to expose the damaged steel before cleaning and repainting the members with section loss of 15% or less. They replaced more damaged members and restored the cladding with GFRC panels.