Midwest On the Scene: October 2019 | Columbus Ohio Dump Trucks

Tall Buildings Conference Has Elevator Event

Attendees of the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat’s annual meeting enjoyed a reception at the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago by Finnish elevator manufacturer Kone on Oct. 29.

While admiring the 1,500 species of aquatic life at the Shedd, guests also learned about Kone’s UltraRope, an alternative to steel cables for elevators in tall buildings that has four strands of carbon fiber woven together and is covered by a high-friction coating. Representatives from Kone said it extends the life of the average tall building elevator cable to twice what a steel cable can provide, eliminates rope stretch and is being specified on the 817-ft-tall Bank of America Tower at 110 N. Wacker Drive in Chicago. It has also been specified on the Jeddah Tower in Saudi Arabia.

Kone also showed guests its JumpLift product, a temporary construction elevator that can be installed into the elevator shaft of a building and removed when the building’s permanent elevator is ready for installation. By taking the construction elevator off the side of a building and using the elevator shaft, Kone aims to deliver safer and more secure construction sites.

Larry Wash, executive vice president of Kone Americas, welcomed attendees to the event and reminded them it was the invention of the elevator that first made the skyscraper boom possible in Chicago.