Immortalized in Frank Sinatra’s classic song "Chicago," "State Street, that Great Street" is also notable for its many landmarks including the Chicago Theater, Page Brothers Building, S.R. Crown Hall, and newer architecture like the Washington Library Center, to name a few. The north-south thoroughfare runs through the heart of downtown Chicago and has been a destination for Chicagoans and tourists since the mid-19th century.

The Page Brothers building, at 177-91 N. State St., was designed by John Mills Van Osdel, who is considered one of Chicago’s prominent architects from the time of the city’s incorporation in 1937 to the Great Chicago Fire of 1971 (photo courtesy of Daniel P. Coffey & Associates). The building was listed on the National Register of Historical Places in 1975 and designated a Chicago Landmark in 1983. Located next to the historic Chicago Theater, the Page Brothers Building’s decorative exterior steel and aluminum surfaces at the top of the structure were renovated in 2008 using a fluoropolymer coating system from Tnemec. The project was managed by the forensic and structural analysis firm of Wiss Janney Elster.

The Page Brothers Building required complete removal of the original coatings in accordance with SSPC-SP6/NACE No. 3 Commercial Blast Cleaning, as well as chemical stripping of more sensitive aluminum surfaces. “Sandblasting would tear up the thin-gauged aluminum that needed recoating, so a chemical stripping process was required,” Tnemec coating consultant Chris Wascher explained. The complete coating system for steel surfaces included a prime coat of Series 90-97 Tneme-Zinc, a zinc-rich urethane primer; an intermediate coat of Series 66 Hi-Build Epoxoline, a polyamide epoxy; and a finish coat of Series 1071 Fluoronar, an advanced thermoset solution fluoropolymer. Series 135 Chembuild, a modified polyamidoamine epoxy, was substituted as the prime coat on aluminum surfaces, followed by the same intermediate and finish coats. A total of 133 gallons of various coatings were required to complete the project.

Tnemec coatings were also used on the exterior steel, galvanized metal, and aluminum surfaces on the Harold Washington Library Center located at 400 S. State St. Designed in a neo-classical style, the building is the largest lending library in the country (photo courtesy of Wayne Lorentz/Artefaqs Corporation). The 750,000-square-foot central library houses Chicago’s public art collection, a 400-seat auditorium, 2-million books, and an 18,000-square-foot children’s library. Decorative steel and aluminum roof details include a casting of the goddess of grain with a ribbon that states the city’s motto “Urbs in Horto,” which is Latin for “City in a Garden.”

“Essentially, you have a masonry building with a patina of light-green colored ornamental steel that originally had a Tnemec coating system applied in the mid-1990s,” Wascher noted. “The existing coating system was still in good shape, but it was time for a recoat. Work on the overcoat started in 2007 and was completed in the summer of 2008. It included all of the catwalks, the walkway systems, the railings, as well as the decorative steel and aluminum.”

Long-term protection from ultraviolet (UV) light and weathering were the performance characteristics for the steel and aluminum coatings used to protect the library center. A spot prime coat of Series 530 Omnithane, an aluminum-pigmented urethane was specified for aged galvanized metal, while Series 135 was used as a primer on steel and aluminum. An intermediate coat of Series 66 was used for the steel surfaces and Series 161 Tneme-Fascure, a polyamide epoxy, was used on the aluminum surfaces. All of the surfaces were topcoated with Series 73 Endura-Shield, an aliphatic acrylic polyurethane that is highly resistant to abrasion, corrosive fumes, and exterior weathering. Nearly 1,100-gallons of coatings were required for the project. “This was essentially a reintroduction of the Tnemec coating system,” Wascher added. “The owner was very comfortable with the performance and track record of this particular coating system.

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