GGR Group have successfully completed work on a project to help refurbish one of Glasgow city centre’s landmark high rise buildings, St Andrews House.

The 17 storey St Andrews House tower on West Nile Street is currently being transformed from an office building into a brand new 210 bedroom Premier Inn hotel. Originally built in 1963, it was one of Glasgow’s first modern high rise buildings, and over the last two years it has been given a radical contemporary makeover with some help from GGR Group’s Unic mini spider cranes.

A familiar sight on the St Andrews House construction site has been a Unic URW-706 mini spider crane, which has been lifting materials required for refurbishment and removing old materials from a roof 3 stories up since October 2010. Much of the renovation work has been stripping the building of its interior and old concrete facade, then recladding it with glass and aluminium before completely refurbishing the interior.

Two of our 2.9 tonne capacity Unic URW-295 models were also hired earlier this year to work from a 78 metre high rooftop. The slimline 600mm wide mini cranes could easily fit on the building’s goods hoist to be lifted up to roof level, travel to their required location and set up ready for action with their positionable outriggers sat across steel beams.

First of all the Unic URW-295 cranes worked from the building’s interior on lower levels to remove mast climbers and install cladding sections. Once on the roof they were then used to lift materials in place of the removed goods hoist and install the final cladding panels.