Underground car park of Pentahotel Leipzig

The underground car park below the Pentahotel in Leipzig's Brockhaus Centre has been undergoing extensive refurbishment since January 2020. Both the client and the planning engineers have put their faith in the know-how provided by MC’s Carpark FoE (Field of Expertise).
The Pentahotel Leipzig is located in the Brockhaus-Zentrum complex, built in 1995, in the city centre and is only a few minutes' walk from both the iconic Church of St. Thomas and the famous Gewandhaus concert hall. Its modern façade is a real eye-catcher, creating an interesting contrast with the historical ambience of the Saxony metropolis.

 

Underground car park on two levels

The hotel includes an underground car park with two parking decks, and their complete refurbishment –  spread over a total of five construction phases – began in January of this year. By September 2020, three construction phases had been successfully completed, with the fourth currently in progress. Final hand-over is scheduled for March 2021, by which time a total area of around 25,000 m² of wall and ceiling and around 16,000 m² of floor will have been renovated. The lower level of the car park will boast a grade OS 8 surface protection coating, with an OS 11b complex being provided for the upper deck.

The hotel operator, Corpus Sireo Real Estate GmbH of Heusenstamm (Germany), had commissioned the Berlin engineering office Drews GmbH to plan the renovation project. For both principals, the focus was primarily on achieving a rapid yet durable repair solution from a single source while also ensuring the least possible disruption to car park operations. The client and planners thus opted for MC product systems and commissioned CSE Construction of Berlin to carry out the repair and application work.

Single-source concrete refurb

MC sales representative Thomas Baumgartner and Oliver Krause, Sales Manager Infrastructure & Industry at MC's Berlin Service Centre, recommended a new, particularly fast and reliable solution for the repair of the concrete wall and floor areas: MC’s recently launched Emcekrete 50 A, a slow-hardening grouting concrete. The product can be used both for large-volume applications with layer thicknesses up to 320 mm, and as a repair mortar  conforming to German concrete component  protection and repair code RL-SIB. Emcekrete 50 A exhibits a low tendency to shrinkage and forms a good bond with the substrate. The grouting concrete is also characterised by high resistance to freeze-thaw cycling according to the CDF test method (Capillary suction of De-icing solution and Freeze-thaw test). It achieves compressive strength values of 20 N/mm² after just one day, 55 N/mm² after seven days and 65 N/mm² after 28 days, thus satisfying the criteria for compressive strength class C 50/60. In addition to this, portions of the floor refurbishment work were carried out using MC's repair concrete Nafufill SC 08, predominantly by manual trowelling. On more than 10,000 m² of non-trafficable surfaces, an OS 2 surface protection system was then applied, finished off with a colour upgrade in the form of MC-Color flair pure, the high-performance pigmented coating from MC.

 

MC’s OS 8 and OS 11b car park coatings in demand

The repair of the approximately 8,000 m² floor slab of the lower parking deck was implemented using MC's OS 8 surface protection system with MC-DUR 1322. This is a rigid coating complex offering easy application combined with high mechanical load-bearing capacity and confirmed resistance to rising damp. The intermediate deck, also measuring around 8,000 m², was rehabilitated using the OS 11b surface protection system from MC, a flexible single-layer complex with a high crack-bridging capability.

 

The first three phases of the car park refurbishment project in Leipzig were completed with great success. The fourth phase is currently proceeding well, with phase five due to follow in early 2021. This should be completed by March – with the product systems and know-how of MC ever-present as integral parts of the solution.