Towne Center Dome Building Getting Facelift

Editor’s Note: Eric Lee is a student at Whitney High now interning at HMG-CN as a roving reporter. We welcome him to our team.

By Eric Lee

As of a few weeks ago, residents in and around Cerritos, have noticed scaffolding around the dome building in the Cerritos Towne Center. The building, owned by the law corporation Atkinson, Andelson, Loyda, Ruud & Romo, was built less than five years ago and is a noticeable structure among those in the surrounding area.
The dome is made with interconnecting arches held together with several rings and supporting beams. The dome has two walls around its base, with one larger in radius than the other. All of these are almost entirely made with metal.
Recently, the paint on the metal has started to peel and form bubbles on the surface after the years of exposure, prompting the scaffolding and repair.
The property owners hired Century Building Solutions to do the repainting job, a process that includes grinding off the old paint, applying primer, and painting over the primer with a topcoat of new paint.
The job does not include repairing the actual the dome structure.
The repainting process will only be done on the rings and beams supporting the dome and the two concentric walls surrounding it, excluding the top part of the dome, where the scaffolding does not reach the thin arches.
“The process is regular,” explains Teodoro Pandoro-Magana, the Project Superintendent, “when you paint on metals or panels, after four years or six years, the paint will start to have bubbles appearing on the surface. It happens with iron, steel, everything. Our job is to scratch off all the old paint, and after that, we’re going to put on a layer of primer, and then a topcoat.”
The project was started almost a month ago, though progress was slowed by rain and unfavorable conditions in the last week. Without any further delay, the job is expected to be done by Sunday, December 20th.