Slippery Rock Gazette

Peter J. Marcucci

Photos  Courtesy The Marble Restoration Company

Since 2014, The Marble Restoration Company has been restoring some of Pennsylvania’s most notable landmarks. One recent project, the lobby of the 801 Market Street Building in downtown Philadelphia, PA, is the latest example of how The Marble Restoration Company has earned its reputation as the go-to experts for renovations done right. It is one more sterling example of what Rick Sirianni and his technicians can accomplish.

The near-century-old limestone and marble lobby was marred with dirt, cracks and flaws from decades of heavy foot traffic. Renovations included baseboards, floors, and wall cladding.  In only three short weeks, the cleaned, repaired and polished lobby was restored to its former glory.

Occupying the former location of the well-known Strawbridge & Clothiers department store, a Beaux-Arts Style, six-story built in 1897, stands 801 Market Street, a 700,000 square-foot high-rise completed in 1928.

After almost 100 years of use, the lobby was looking the worse for enduring decades of foot traffic. This majestic old structure was in dire need of cosmetic work. Answering the call for help, The Marble Restoration Company rose to the challenge, recalls Rick Sirianni.

Decades of damage to stone floors and baseboards were a major focus of this restoration.

The lobby rises some 40 feet so cleaning and polishing the walls were a challenging part of the project. The beautiful, carved trim around the arch was marred by cracks and spalling. Patches were made and covered with color-matched  K-Bond epoxy, and then polished.

“When I initially looked at 801 Market Street with two of my senior guys, we walked through the job step by step, section by section, and we just kind of estimated how long each section would take. The cleaning and the polishing was the easy part, and very mechanical for us, but it’s the repair work stuff that scares you, because you never really know what you’re getting into. 

“Some of the stone corners were in terrible condition and crumbling, and, as you can imagine, sometimes, when you take out one piece of loose stone, all of a sudden the rest of it starts crumbling. So we had to go through over 500 different repairs, and try to estimate just how long each one was going to take. Even though we built in a little bit of fudge factor, there’s just so much fudge you can build in without worrying that you’re going to overprice a job.”    

If things sound challenging at this point, an even bigger challenge awaited Sirianni. Unlike The Marble Restoration Company’s past jobs that were acquired through local contractors, this one was through G Builders LLC from New York, N.Y. They were, as some would say, the new guys on the block, continued Sirianni. 

“They had put the job out to bid, but they were new and we were strangers, they didn’t know who we were. So there was a matter of developing a trusting, working relationship, and we had to go through all kinds of hoops to prove to them that we were qualified to do the work. To convince them, we said let us go in and do some samples for you. 

“We did two samples of repairs, two samples of the restoration and polishing of the floors, and two samples of the cleaning, polishing and sealing of the walls. We did it on our own time, but it was a big enough job that it was worth doing the samples, and ultimately, between the samples and when they found out who we were and the types of buildings that we had done in the past, they decided we were the team that they wanted handling this project.”

Cleaned, restored and polished, the Jerusalem Gold limestone lobby floor still looks pristine after a month of use — especially now, with regular maintenance.

The Fine Art of Color Matching

Now that Sirianni had landed the project, it was time to get down and dirty. As they were dealing with a 94-year-old building, sourcing replacement materials at a local marble shop was not an option, but color matching and gluing was, although it would be very time consuming. However, there was a silver lining, explained Sirianni. “We had just brought on four new trainees, and we decided that this job would be a real good training ground for them. First of all, the last thing you want to do is put a new guy into a residential job with a cherry picker. At this job, though, we had this huge, 40-foot high, open lobby that we could really train them in the technique of using one of these. This really helped them. More importantly, though, with all the damage, the hardest thing to train someone in is doing the repair work, and how to color match. We’ve always had a real challenge training guys how to do these, because we seldom have the right job to spend the time teaching and showing them. 

Above, left: With a general cleaning, the beauty of the large floor tiles began to shine through the grime of decades. Some of the basic restoration issues the crew overcame included repairing holes, cracks, and inferior fill repairs, as necessary.  Above, right: Apart from large cracks in the flooring, the areas around the elevators – especially the baseboards – were most heavily worn. The ornate elevator floors also need a lot of TLC and cleaning.

Above: Vestibule arch inside the front entrance is faced with Jerusalem Gold panels, to match the flooring. Cracks and spalling were the major defects to be repaired, followed by a good polishing. The vestibule rises some 40 feet inside the front entrance, so a cherry picker was need to access the walls.

Above: Color-matching the patch repairs was a good opportunity for Sirianni’s newer techs to gain experience.

“On the 801 Market Street job, there were five different colors of stone and a ton of crazy, crazy damage, and it was the perfect opportunity to train and give them the experience of doing repairs and color matching.” 

According to Sirianni, materials used throughout were a picturesque mix of Jerusalem Gold, Perlato, Travertine, Absolute Black and Rosa Sardo. Framed, historical-themed frescos mounted above the elevators adorn the lobby, but also added to the complication, and had to be safely worked around, said Sirianni. “We had to protect these beautiful frescos when we were polishing the marble walls around them. We were like, ‘Oh my goodness. We don’t want to damage them.’ So these areas were done by our more experienced people.”

Another thing that worked in their favor was the fact that there wasn’t a lot of traffic to work around during the renovation. Due to the pandemic, many of the people occupying the upstairs floors were still working from home, so the technicians pretty much had free reign at all hours. One, two-man team did the high work which took two weeks, while another team did the prep work for the repairs and restoration. 

With 4-6 techs working at any one time, total time from start to finish was three weeks. 

“A lot of times we didn’t have any material to fill in the broken or missing areas,” continued Sirianni, “So we filled in the big gaps with cement, and then covered the cement with colored K-Bond Epoxy to blend it in, and then polished it to match the surrounding stone. The materials were so old there was no way we were going to find replacement materials that matched, except for maybe the black granite. So the fact of the matter is that some areas were so beat up, that we were never going to get them to look brand new. Our goal was to match repaired areas as best as possible, and when we finished they looked outstanding. My senior techs Mike McCormick and Steve Meredith are great at color matching.”

When Sirianni was asked what he loved most about the final product, he replied, “When we were finished with 801 Market Street, what impressed me the most was the view of the floors from the archway. The floors just popped! What looked like a beat-up old lady when we started —  and looked like a grand dame when we were finished. To me, it’s like cooking. I’m a chef, and when you make something you get gratification. Refinishing old stone you get the same thing. The beauty comes out, and it looks brilliant. The frescos and brass elevators that we didn’t even touch, were now highlighted from the work that my guys did. I don’t do the work, they do absolutely amazing work, and the company would be nothing without them. I love the work that we accomplish, and all of us could really see the difference that we made when we stood back.” 

For more information about The Marble Restoration Company, visit www.marblerestorationco.com .