Construction Cost

St. Jerome’s University broke ground in April of 2014 on a $47 million expansion in Waterloo, Ontario. The campus renewal project includes construction of a two-story, 22,464-sf academic facility and a seven-story, 360-bed student residence. Diamond Schmitt Architects, Graham Construction, and St. Jerome’s are pursuing an Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) model to optimize efficiency through all phases of design, fabrication, and construction.

The 101,800-gsf, $88.6 million Margaret Murie Building at the University of Alaska Fairbanks is the capstone project of a new life sciences district designed to accommodate a boom in graduate students and research grants in the life sciences. The research and teaching facility, featuring a flexible laboratory design and a new shared-space culture, replaces UAF’s legacy biology facilities with 60 percent overall space efficiency and more than 80 percent year-round utilization of teaching spaces.

End-of-year data from 2013 indicates that residential construction is on the rebound, with more than 1 million housing starts occurring in the fourth quarter. This is the first quarter that residential construction broke the 1 million mark since 2008. As a result, the national unemployment rate in the construction sector finally broke 10 percent at the end of 2013.

Baptist Health is implementing modular construction methodology to build its 194,100-sf hospital in Conway, Ark. Pods comprising bathrooms and inpatient room headwalls are being fabricated offsite and transported to the location of the medical center. This process will shorten the duration of construction as the pods can be created while the building shell is still being erected. The completed 100-bed, three-story facility will provide seven surgical suites and a Level III trauma and emergency care center. Occupancy is expected in 2016.
 

Lease arrangements for office and laboratory space have historically been mostly for smaller companies, but are now becoming increasingly popular as a way for large research institutions to find an entrée into or expand in congested and expensive urban centers quickly, cost-effectively, and with more flexibility than building new.

The following is a compilation of responses to a survey that asked individuals responsible for planning, design, operations, and maintenance of high-containment facilities to rank their priorities for 2014 and make open-ended comments regarding those priorities. The issues identified in this survey will be the focus of Tradeline’s upcoming conference—The 2014 International Conference on Biocontainment Facilities—on April 10‐11 in Scottsdale, Arizona.

The respondents ranked their overall priorities as follows:

The University of North Texas has partnered with Ramtech Building Systems on a modular construction project in Denton. The three-building installation provides 38,000 sf of instructional space, conference rooms, and faculty and administrative offices. Designed to showcase the speed and versatility of moveable modular construction, the $3.5 million project has enabled the relocation of key programs as part of the new $130 million University Union project.

Capital construction costs for institutional projects will continue rising across much of the nation due to growing market strength, regional labor shortages, rising commodity prices, and an increase in mark-ups. Construction volume, the industry’s biggest cost driver, continued its steady increase—up more than 18 percent in the third quarter of 2013 from the bottom in March 2011. At the current rate of growth, construction prices will surpass the industry trend line in 2014, repeating long-term cyclical patterns.

Eastern Kentucky University's utility costs have remained stable over the last two years due to the implementation five years ago of an Energy Savings Performance Contract (ESPC) with Siemens Building Technologies. Aiming to generate savings and address deferred maintenance needs, the $27 million contract included extensive infrastructure upgrades to HVAC, lighting, and water systems, as well as the integration of building automation technologies.

The American Institute of Architects (AIA) today announced the release in November of 2013 of seven new Sustainable Projects (SP) contract documents. The release includes SP versions of the AIA’s two families of Construction Management documents, Construction Manager as Adviser (CMa) and Construction Manager as Constructor (CMc), as well as B103–2007 SP, Standard Form of Agreement Between Owner and Architect for a Large or Complex Sustainable Project.

Offsite prefabrication of building modules can potentially transform the construction process in the United States, according to two engineers who have implemented the technique on multiple project sites. The experience of Ed Szwarc and Dean Poillucci of Skanska USA Building, Inc., indicates that assembly of such units at offsite construction facilities (OSCFs) radically compresses schedules and improves safety while also providing cost savings.

Blindly trying to incorporate all the cutting-edge technologies and processes in the delivery of a new facility can lead to more waste than value. It’s important that building owners understand which Lean design principles, innovative technologies, and sustainability strategies meet their needs and add value to their specific project in a way that maximizes lifecycle performance, says Andreas Phelps, integrated projects executive at Balfour Beatty Construction.

The following is a condensed transcript of a panel discussion from Tradeline’s 2013 International Conference on Research Facilities. The panelists are William Gustafson, principal at Ballinger; Steven Frei, principal at Affiliated Engineers, and Michael Reagan, vice president of Stantec. The moderator is Steve Westfall, founder and CEO of Tradeline.

UMass Memorial Health Care opened its 14,000-sf Cancer Center at Marlborough Hospital in September of 2013. Designed by The S/L/A/M Collaborative, the $12.8 million facility features an illuminated entrance pavilion, an infusion therapy space with abundant natural light, and a healing garden with a reflecting pool.

Fairfax Hospital is implementing Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) in the $20 million expansion of its Kirkland facility. The 68-bed addition was designed by Boulder Associates and is being constructed by BNBuilders. The project team includes 12 firms participating in the IPD process, all working in close collaboration to deliver an advanced facility at a lower cost as compared with traditional construction methodologies.