Welty Calls the Right Play at The Cleveland Athletic Club

Hard work brings real results. It is as true in sports as it is in construction. The Welty Building Company faced many challenges when converting the historic Cleveland Athletic Club.
A stalwart of downtown Cleveland, the 17 story structure opened it doors in 1908 but ceased operation in 2007.

In recent years local development team put together a plan to convert the structure into apartments. The FreshWater Cleveland website has a wonderful article on the project, and if you are interested in reading more details that article can be found here.

The Cleveland Athletic Club building had sat empty for years before the conversion started.

One of the first challenges the Welty team faced was an aggressive deadline to turn over the first 5 floors.

Any building that has sat vacant for 10 years will undoubtedly have a high level of moisture. Converting an already-humid space on time is hard enough without the increased moisture that construction produces. Recognizing this, Robert Tietenberg contacted us early on to put together to a plan to control moisture levels within those 5 critical floors. The plan? Implement a mixture of dehumidifiers and air movers. The result? They not only dried out the building, but maintained a level of humidity that was conducive to punctual construction and finish schedules.

Dehumidifiers paired with air movers make for a powerful climate-control combination.

With the fast pace of construction and the multitude of trades entering and exiting on a constant basis, it is never easy to maintain those ideal levels.

Welty persisted by enclosing and therefore controlling those crucial floors, turning them over on time even under difficult circumstances. Our congratulations go out to Robert, Neil Silliman, Harry Baumgartner, Mark Spronz, Kevin Vertal, Don Lord, and the entire Welty team, who refused to lose in a challenging environment. We at Phipps are grateful to be a part of such a historic project. Awesome work guys! Thank you for your efforts.

Being vigilant about keeping spaces enclosed maximizes the output of your climate control equipment.

If climate issues have you worried about your schedule, we are here to help. Please feel free to contact us today.