Building with concrete competes with steel.(News & Events)

According to the Boston Globe, the developers of a new luxury condominium in Providence, R.I., scrapped plans for a steel structure and drew up a new design in concrete. Other parts of the country favor concrete, which is more expensive, but in the East almost all modern towers and tall residential buildings are built on skeletons of steel columns and beams. This building is to be Rhode Island's tallest building, and the new concrete design was able to squeeze two more floors into the building without increasing the building's height or taking away from the initial design.

With construction costs skyrocketing, due largely to the rising price of steel, the developers, Blue Chip Properties, decided to price a concrete structure. "The steel price rises day to day," said Minhaj Kirmani, a principal of Weidlinger Associates Inc. of Cambridge, consulting engineers to Blue Chip Properties. "Nobody can guarantee prices six months down the line."

Even with increasing steel prices, switching to concrete was more expensive ...