The Outlets at Montehiedra is a one-level enclosed mall with more than 100 stores, a food court and a large-screen theater complex with IMAX and 4DX rooms. Located in Cupey, a suburb just outside of San Juan, Puerto Rico, the mall was originally developed in 1994 as the retail component of a planned urban development of affluent residential communities. At the time, it was called Montehiedra Town Center.
The mall owner, Urban Edge Properties, decided to convert the 600,000-square-foot shopping center into the metropolitan area’s first outlet mall. As part of this $20-million renovation project, San Juan-based Hambleton Group Construction Co. Inc. was contracted to resurface the entire 14,000 square feet of the property’s 25-year-old concrete sidewalk.
The contractor began work in October 2016, and it was imperative that work be completed before the mall’s grand reopening ceremony in mid-November. Because the island experiences a rainy season from late April through the entirety of November, the crew also had to work around the rain. For these reasons, Hambleton Group used CTS Cement’s Rapid Set® hydraulic cement-based products, due to their fast setting times.
The existing sidewalk surface had become extremely deteriorated over the years, with exposed aggregates, fragmentation, spalls, and cracks. The contractor used Rapid Set® Cement All® to repair all joints, edges of curbs, and cracks. The high-strength, non-shrink grout is formulated with a high-performance blend of Rapid Set® Cement and specialty sand. Not only is it an ideal multipurpose product for general concrete repair, but it is also durable in wet environments, sets in 15 minutes, and is ready for traffic in one hour. One 55-pound bag yields approximately 0.5 cubic feet. For this project, the contractor used about 60 bags.
Next, to prepare the sidewalk for resurfacing, the crew applied Rapid Set® Acrylic Primer to increase surface adhesion. And finally, the crew used Rapid Set® Concrete Resurfacer (CR). When applied in thicknesses from 1/32- to 1/2-inch (0.08 to 1.27 centimeters), the mortar has a working time of up to 30 minutes and produces a smooth and durable surface that is able to receive foot traffic in as little as two to three hours. Using cutting-edge self-curing technology, CR does not need to be wet cured in most applications. One 25-pound bag yields approximately 0.22 cubic feet; coverage at 1/8-inch is approximately 21.1 square feet. The crew used 230 bags of CR for the mall’s 14,000-square-foot sidewalk.
The Hambleton Group crew completed work over the course of a month, just in time for the mall’s grand opening. The owner was pleased with the fast turnaround, and the sidewalks looked brand new.
