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GUEST COLUMN
Unusual commitment leads to early completion of Engineering II
By Kevin MacNaughton, Associate Vice Chancellor, Facilities
Engineering Building II will open on time, and in time for fall semester. On the surface, that may not be anything near a startling announcement.
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MacNaughton |
But one of the first things I learned on my arrival here in January was that the contractor and university staff had voluntarily committed to accelerate the scheduled delivery of a large portion of the classroom component so that classes could be held in this building beginning this semester. So in this case, “on time” is about four months early.
The second major College of Engineering academic building on Centennial Campus has been under construction for the past year. This $46 million building includes numerous classrooms and faculty offices for the computer science department and the electrical and computer engineering department. It will complement the first engineering building, which has lab facilities, classrooms and offices for the chemical and biomolecular engineering department and the materials science and engineering department.
The stakes were high because once this commitment to open in time for fall semester was made, classes would be scheduled in this building and it would be nearly impossible to have a backup plan because of the vast number of students and classes involved. The construction manager, Clancy and Theys, accepted the challenge and got support from all of the prime contractors. University staff in the Facilities Division, classroom technology staff, along with staff from the State Construction Office and the College of Engineering worked together to ensure that furniture deliveries, building inspections, and moves took place in a very compressed period of time.
The effort was not without other challenges. During the life of this project, there have been steel and concrete shortages, a discovery of 4,000 cubic yards of rock and other unsuitable materials that had to be excavated to start foundations, a tight construction market and bad weather at key points. Despite these setbacks, the construction team continued to make up for lost time to meet their early delivery commitment.
Although students and faculty will face a few challenges of temporary building access ways, noise, and some dust while the remainder of the building is completed, having these classrooms a semester earlier gives the university the space it needs to meet the demands of increased enrollment. It also allows the university to advance several other construction projects that fall on the heels this project, providing an estimated $800,000 savings in inflation.
Carol Woodyard, director of construction management, recently added her own observation, “Our team of contractors, consultants, staff and faculty have obtained uncommon results in overcoming the many challenges they faced. Everyone really lived up to the motto that ‘Teamwork is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results.’”
Posted Aug. 5, 2005
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