Suburban Chicago Manufacturer Provides Unique Solution to Maggie Daley Park Construction Project

ST. CHARLES, Ill. - Dec. 17, 2014 - PRLog -- With the public opening of the ice skating ribbon at Maggie Daley Park this past weekend, construction of the $55 million park, is in its final stages, thanks in part to Elburn, Ill.-based Terramac LLC, a manufacturer of rubber track crawler carriers used in a variety of earthmoving, construction and utility applications. Two Terramac RT9 crawler carriers were used to haul and dump soil and stone above the thousands of yards of geofoam forming the base for the landscape of the 25-acre environmentally sustainable park which covers the top of the vast parking garage at the northeast corner of Chicago’s Grant Park.

Named in honor of Chicago’s former First Lady, Maggie Daley, the park is scheduled to officially open in the spring of 2015.

“As a company based in the greater Chicago area, our team at Terramac is honored to have been involved in such an important project for the Chicago Park District and the city of Chicago,” said Mike Crimaldi, CEO of Terramac LLC. “We are confident that current and future generations of Chicagoans and visitors alike will enjoy this one-of-a-kind park."

Crimaldi’s experience working with crawler carriers gave him the inspiration and vision to develop a superior product that would best meet the needs of customers. He founded Terramac in 2011 to change the way the industry looks at these multi-purpose machines.

One company in particular that sees the Terramac RT9 in a new light is Chicago-based Walsh Construction Company II, LLC. The company was hired last fall to manage the second phase of the park project, which included site preparation, concrete foundations, fencing, irrigation, soil installation and landscaping. In addition to structural fill and topsoil, Walsh Construction delivered about 570 semi-truck loads of expanded polystyrene geofoam, a lightweight, environmentally safe, and recyclable plastic foam fill material used to create landscapes and hills across a 16-acre space that sits directly on top of the parking garage. The geofoam allows the final grades of the site to vary in elevation without causing the concrete garage roof to be overloaded.

Getting the geofoam placed across the site was one thing, but covering the material with soil and stone across such a large space was a challenge. A solution quickly presented itself earlier this spring when representatives from Walsh Construction were invited to visit Terramac’s facility in Elburn, located less than 50 miles due west of Chicago, to test drive the RT9 crawler carrier. “Once they got into the machine, drove it around, and saw what it can do, they were sold,” said Matt Slater, director of sales at Terramac.

Ideal for carrying supplies and materials, the bed on the Terramac RT9 crawler carrier elevates to a 48-degree angle for dumping gravel, sand and dirt. When fully loaded, the ground pressure on the multi-purpose RT9 crawler carrier is only 5.1 pounds per square inch (psi)—which meant the lightweight geofoam could support the weight of these machines without any structural damage to the material.

Once the top of the garage structure was layered with geofoam, the two RT9 crawler carriers started hauling soil from nearby Peanut Park and placing the first layers of soil above the thousands of yards of geofoam. “On average, we moved 500 yards of dirt a day and as many as eight loads of stone a day,” said Robert Bolt, senior project superintendent, Walsh Construction.

“The Terramac RT9s were the only way to go for a job like this,” Bolt said. “These machines allowed my crews to go in new directions and create whole new tracks across the job site, even the day after a rain. We had some really messy haul roads as a result of the rain, but after running the two RT9 carriers fully loaded for three straight days, those roads were as flat, solid and hard as can be.”

Recently, as the Maggie Daley Park project neared completion, Terramac produced and delivered its 100^th RT9 production unit. The company strives to become the world’s leading manufacturer of rubber track crawler carriers. “We are committed to providing reliable, efficient and innovative equipment, parts and service for contractors and OEMs worldwide,” Crimaldi said.