45 Fremont Center

Project Details

Located in the South Financial District of San Francisco, California, the renovated 34-story skyscraper at 45 Fremont Street banked on low- VOC fluoropolymer technology from Tnemec to cash in on long-term performance and aesthetics.

“Older buildings around the city are showing their age, especially with all the new construction going on in the area,” explained coating consultant Carl Bowers of Amos And Associates, Inc. “The aluminum curtain wall on 45 Fremont Center was showing oxidation which resembled corrosion.”

The building’s owner and architect based their coating decision on a visual inspection of side-by-side mockups from Tnemec and one of its largest competitors in the fluoropolymer coatings market. Tnemec was selected based on the uniform texture and smoothness of its mockup.

“Getting the roller-applied coating on a 34-story building to look like a spray-applied, factory-finished coil coating was a challenge,” Bowers recalled. “The coating contractor made this possible by applying enough film on the surface to level it out without showing any roller marks.”

The surface was power tool cleaned to uniformly roughen the original finish for a minimum anchor profile of 1.0 mil. The surface was primed with Series 135 Chembuild, a high-build polyamidoamine epoxy coating with superior wetting for use over tightly adhering old coatings.

A finish coat of taupe-colored Series 1072V Fluoronar, a low-VOC, satin finish fluoropolymer coating, provided an ultra-durable performance and outstanding color and gloss retention.

“The project architect provided ongoing quality assurance control while the coating contractor was working,” according to Bowers. “Full- time inspection was provided during the initial start-up, followed by periodic inspections as work continued.”

Working from swing stages, the coating contractor was plagued by wind, fog and rain throughout the project, causing substantial delays. Bowers acknowledged the coating contractor for keeping the project moving forward under these challenging conditions.

“In the end, this was one of the nicest projects I’ve worked on and it really looks great,” Bowers added. “When you drive past this building, or see it from the rooftop of another building, you would never know it was roller-applied. It really looks like a factory-spray-applied finish.”