Few renovation projects carry the pressure of altering a concert hall known for its acoustics. At Powell Hall in St. Louis, that concern surfaced almost immediately during early planning meetings for the building’s major renovation and expansion. For Alex Verseman and the team at Missouri Floor Company, the challenge simply was not rebuilding the flooring inside a century-old landmark, but doing so without disrupting the sound qualities people already associated with the space.
“The acoustics definitely were brought up early as a significant concern,” says Verseman. “There was a fear of not being able to reproduce what they had with the new.”
Missouri Floor Company had worked inside Powell Hall long before the renovation began, performing maintenance work over the years on the stage and parquet seating areas. Once the larger renovation moved forward, however, the scope changed dramatically. Seating tiers were redesigned for spacing and accessibility, sections of the hall were restructured, and flooring throughout much of the building had to be removed and rebuilt. In total, the project involved more than 27,500 square feet of flooring work, and roughly stretched across six months of active installation.
As construction progressed, the realities of working inside a century-old building became apparent. “When you have a 100-year-old building, plans change and change often,” says Verseman.
One of the most technically demanding portions of the project proved to be the orchestra seating area. The floor slopes toward the center in an elliptical, bowl-like shape that required the flooring to contour around the room while maintaining straight, clean lines visually.
“The whole area down there almost is like a bowl or an ellipse,” explains Verseman. “We had to figure out how to get the wood to bend and still keep our lines.”
That area ultimately received a prefinished rift and quartered white oak engineered floor installed over a substantial wood subfloor system. Beneath the flooring was a plenum used as part of the hall’s heating and cooling system, which added another layer of coordination to the installation process.
Elsewhere in the building, particularly in the tiered balcony seating areas, Missouri Floor Company worked to recreate the appearance of the original parquet flooring as closely as possible. The original material was no longer readily available, so the company worked with a mill to produce custom white oak parquet panels that could achieve a similar visual effect.
Originally, the material was expected to arrive prefinished. That changed during the process, forcing the team to pivot toward unfinished material that would require sanding and finishing on site.
“We had to come up with an unfinished product that we could glue down and then sand and finish ourselves,” recalls Verseman.
The balcony terraces created another challenge during finishing. Traditional sanding machines could not navigate the stepped seating levels easily, so crews heavily relied on Bona Power Drive systems along with extensive hand work to complete the sanding process. Remaining areas were sanded using more traditional methods before being finished with a Bona sealer, DuraSeal stain, and Bona Traffic HD.
Even beyond the flooring work itself, coordination became one of the defining challenges of the project. Flooring installation had to be timed carefully so newly completed surfaces would not be damaged by other trades continuing work throughout the building.
“A lot of it was coordination and communication,” says Verseman. “We had to let everybody know what we needed, what the risks were, and then stand and deliver on our side, too.”
General contractor, BSI Constructors, helped coordinate scheduling throughout the renovation. “It took a lot of patience,” says Verseman. “There were so many moving parts and a very aggressive schedule.”
At the same time, Missouri Floor Company had to resist the temptation to sacrifice quality in favor of speed. “Our big thing is quality first,” adds Verseman. “When you get pushed with multiple moving parts, it is easy to fall into just trying to get it done. We had to stand firm in what we set ourselves out to do.”
The renovation also included a substantial modern addition to Powell Hall, creating another balancing act between historic and contemporary design. White oak became a common thread between the original hall and the newer spaces. In areas such as donor lounges, the team installed wider rift and quartered white oak planks finished in more natural tones to complement the updated architecture while still connecting to the historic portions of the building visually.
For Verseman, the success of the project ultimately came down to teamwork. From the office to the field crews, nearly every part of the company was involved in helping manage the scale and pace of the work.
“It wasn’t anything one person did,” says Verseman. “You have to have a team to pull something like this off.”
In the end, the project required far more than flooring installation alone. It demanded flexibility, organization, and constant adaptation inside one of St. Louis’ best-known buildings. Most importantly, it required understanding what could not be lost during the renovation process.
“We had to keep sight of what we were there to do,” concludes Verseman. “Maintain the quality and help put the space back together the right way.”
