As the engineers for the new Pilgrim Monument inclined elevator, Coastal Engineering Company was recently interviewed by the Engineering News Record regarding the project's structural design and permitting considerations.
A team of Cape Cod contractors is headed towards the home stretch on the construction of a rare, inclined elevator at one of the nation’s top historic sites, the Pilgrim Monument in Provincetown, Mass. Led by Harwich-based Robert B. Our Co., the contracting team, made up of a mix of trade partners from across the Cape and specialists from as far afield as Colorado and Switzerland, is now preparing for the arrival of an inclined elevator cab.
Big enough for 18 passengers, the 3,000-pound cab was shipped from Switzerland to New York City, but has since been held up due to customs issues.
The elevator car will be part of an automated, 17.5-ton inclined elevator system that ferries visitors up an 85-ft slope to the top of High Pole Hill—and the Pilgrim Monument—from the streets of downtown Provincetown. It is similar too but different from a funicular, also rare in the United States, which requires a human operator to run it, with just 40 across the country. At 252 ft tall, the Pilgrim Monument is the largest, all-granite building in the United States.
“We had been working all summer and have everything all lined up above ground—all the foundations are in, all the stanchions are in, the platforms are up,” noted John Bologna, CEO of Orleans, Mass.-based Coastal Engineering, which oversaw the design of the inclined elevator system.
Read the entire article by Scott Van Voorhis on ENR website.