JP Morgan Chase & Co.’s cafeteria caters to employees and their guests at 277 Park Ave., the building that houses the bank's corporate offices in New York City’s Manhattan neighborhood. In 2019, the cafeteria was remodeled, which included removing the existing flooring, leveling it and installing a polished concrete overlay. Award-winning commercial flooring contractor RD Weis of Hawthorne, NY, installed and polished 1,200 square feet of the overlay in a short, one-week time frame by using Rapid Set® TRU® SP self-leveling topping.

TRU SP is an advanced, professional-grade, rapid-hardening hydraulic cement-based topping that can be ground and polished to expose the sand and provide a salt-and-pepper appearance. Available in natural and gray, TRU SP levels rapidly, producing a dense surface with high bond strength. Because the topping sets fast, the contractor was able to meet the project’s tight time constraints.

Work began Aug. 21 and included priming the substrate with Rapid Set TXP™ Fast Epoxy Primer and sand broadcast to prevent pinholes and create an ideal substrate grip for the topping. The RD Weis crew applied the primer by squeegee and then back-rolled with a ½-inch nap roller to achieve a uniform thickness of 12 mils (0.3 mm). The primed surface was ready for the overlay in four to six hours.

Next, the crew mixed TRU SP Gray via Hippo mixers and placed it at 1/2-inch thick. They finished with a spiked roller to release any trapped air and provide a smooth, level surface. The surface was ready for foot traffic in two to three hours and for grinding and polishing in 24 hours.

The crew began the last part of the project by grinding the hardened surface to remove the cream (cement paste) and expose the small aggregate underneath. Finally, they polished it to create a high-quality sheen.