Concrete Floors Over Plywood: Weight Watchers Office Space in NYC

The Challenge

Provide a modern-looking, low-maintenance floor solution over a plywood substrate for the corporate offices on WW International, Inc. (Weight Watchers). The office area is 12,000sq.ft. of prime real estate located in the trendy west side neighborhood of Chelsea Manhattan, New York City. The clients wanted concrete floors with a hand-applied appearance and a matte finish.

The Outcome

Using Duraamen professional concrete floor products, Tristar Construction was able to realize the client’s vision for their office flooring. The color and texture of the seamless floor were approved by the client who loves their newly renovated office space.

Overview

In 2014, When Weight Watchers decided to move into a new office space in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, they wisely chose concrete floors as part of their new décor. Concrete is a decorative, contemporary flooring option that compares favorably with the cost of other types of flooring, but is easier to maintain and outlasts all other types of floors.

Weight Watchers’ new office space has a plywood subfloor, so a self-leveling concrete overlay (Param 5500) needed to be installed as a base coat. Param 5500 is often used over substrates that are damaged, need to be raised or leveled, or are not concrete. Our Param 5500 self-leveling concrete provides a base layer for the decorative work to come, though it can also be used as the final finished layer.

In this case, the Param 5500 was used as a base coat to level the plywood floor and provide a suitable substrate for the hand-applied skim coat to adhere to.

Skraffino is Duraamen’s highly acclaimed cement-based microtopping / skim coat. It may be applied by several different methods (hand-troweled, hopper gun, etc.). It may be integrally colored, dyed, or stained. It’s quite versatile and the easiest to use concrete microtopping / skim coat on the market.

For this project, the Skraffino skim coat was integrally colored using Duraamen’s Colorfast concrete coloring powder and hand-applied with a trowel. Two coats of skraffino were needed to achieve the desired hand-applied effect.

Finally, the floor was sealed with our Perdure U45—a polyurethane, UV-resistant topcoat that provides a matte finish. Had the client wanted a lustrous appearance they could have selected Perdure U46 which provides the same protection, but in a gloss finish.

Benefits

Concrete as a flooring solution is a low-maintenance and cost-effective investment. Concrete floors resist scuffs, scratches, abrasions, stains, spills, chemicals, UV light, and high foot traffic. The floor will likely last the life of their office space.

Because the client chose a contemporary neutral color, its appearance will mesh with nearly any future interior design choices they make for their office space.

The price for a concrete floor is very comparable to other types of flooring, though the benefits of a concrete floor far outweigh those of wood, tile, VCT, or carpet.

Cost:

$14sq.ft. NYC prices

$12–$14 sq. ft. ( ½” thick coverage) depending on your geographic location and the thickness of the underlayment. Thickness is determined by the condition of the existing substrate. Is the substrate new, old, level, good condition, deteriorated, plywood, or gypsum?

The cost of this flooring system (all products needed to complete the project) is even less if you’re willing to do it yourself: $4.50–$5.00 sq. ft.

The cost is comparable to other types of flooring including:

• Hardwood
• Ceramic or Porcelain Tile
• Commercial Carpet
• Marble

The Success

A very contemporary, well-designed renovated office space in Chelsea Manhattan now exists where the staff enjoys working and the company has one less thing to think about—their office floors.