JM Helps Committed Team Deliver Time-Sensitive Reroof at CAM St. Louis
Jun. 17, 2024
Precious art, failing roof. What’s a museum to do?
The Contemporary Art Museum in St. Louis turned to a team of experts who designed and installed a reroofing project that delivered artful results on a tight timetable.
Known locally as CAM St. Louis, the museum is part of the city’s popular Grand Center Arts District. Its 500,000 annual visitors are just shy of double the city’s year-round population. Exhibits rotate annually from an off-site collection of more than 36,000 objects and display around 2,700 pieces. In 2021, the roof protecting these precious objects started to fail.
The design and implementation for reroofing the two-story, 16,135-square-foot museum posed challenges, including retaining aesthetic features while improving detailing, the addition of permanent rooftop safety equipment, and performing all work within a scheduled two-month shutdown of the museum.
Cale Prokopf, President of RoofTech Consulting, and his team were CAM’s sole source for design and management of the project. RoofTech conducted due diligence visits, after which aesthetic mock-ups were completed to better understand final design parameters. RoofTech also completed infrared moisture tests on the roof, which found the existing material could be left in place and a new roof could be installed over the top — both shortening the duration of work and lowering the cost.
The reroof used grey JM Fleece-Backed TPO 115 adhered with JM’s Roofing System Urethane Adhesive (RSUA), which the design team at RoofTech specified two-part foam in full coverage to provide the best possible attachment by covering the entire surface area of the fleece-backed membrane. For the flashings, JM 60 mil TPO adhered with JM Membrane Bonding Adhesive did the job.
Additional upgrades included reworking rooftop daylighting structures, new pre-manufactured — and in some areas custom-fabricated — stainless steel metal edging, and pre-manufactured egress platforms with access stairs to assist with safely traversing the seven roof elevations.
Prokopf’s ownership of the project and leadership of the team — and his meticulously detailed plan — are credited with the success of the job by Chris Reiss, Territory Manager for Gulfeagle Supply.
He had this to say at the end of the project: “Communications with Cale were early and often. It was satisfying to work with a team fully committed to delivering the best result. We all had our own customers to answer to, and it works when all the cogs on the wheel are in sync like we were on this job.”
With more than 20 years in roofing, most of it collaborating with Mike Nienkemper, President of GIE, Ltd., Reiss said he is especially proud of his company’s work on the project.
Keegan Tune, Roofing Branch Manager with Western Specialty Contractors, had only positive things to say about the team effort, too.
“Chris and Gulfeagle are always great to work with because they make sure we have what we need, when we need it, which is critical on these tight deadline projects. On a complex job like this one, there were bound to be some technical issues,” he said. “JM and GIE handled these in a timely, professional way — earning their positive reputations.”