Skybridge at JPMorgan Chase

The Newport neighborhood of Jersey City, NJ is one is the largest mixed-use waterfront communities in the United States. At the heart of the community sits 21-story the Chase Building which is leased to its sole tenant, JPMorgan Chase Bank. Located at 757 Washington Boulevard, it is comprised of 807,000 square feet of commercial office space. To improve local foot traffic and pedestrian logistics a new pedestrian bridge was proposed between 575 and the neighboring 545 Washington Blvd building. The pedestrian bridge known as the “Skybridge” was ultimately provided to join the two second floors of the existing buildings while span over the private garage access road below with no ground contact.

Skybridge Construction

McLaren Engineering Group’s Construction Engineering Team was brought on board as the Specialty Structural Engineer (SSE) working for the project’s steel fabricator United Structural Works (USW) to provide delegated connection design for the Skybridge. In addition to delegated connection design, McLaren supplied support to the steel fabricator for erection and rigging logistics.

The engineering for the pedestrian bridge presented unique challenges due to portions of it requiring special details to meet strict architecturally exposed structural steel (AESS) requirements, structural fatigue concerns, erection limitations due to the existing building, and slide bearing connections that could accommodate significant loads in multiple directions while also allowing for large movement where needed.  All of these design challenges were intensified due to needing to meet tight scheduling requirements which required fast and effective solutions. McLaren worked closely with USW, the projects Architect of Record, and the projects Structural Engineer of Record to provide a design that satisfied multiple conflicting requirements from varying parties in an efficient and timely manner.