From: Larry
Schall
Subject: [faculty-staff] The Science Center -- a long note for
interested parties
I was recently asked to try to put down on paper for distribution to the community a summary of what's happening with the Science Center Project --where have we been, where are we going and when are we going there? This project is of such an immense scope and so many different people are playing such essential roles that I know whatever I manage to put down will be full of holes. Then I realized that has not stopped me in the past, so here I go. A little warning --this is a long document and you should feel free to trash at any point. If you are inclined to read on, I have put in some sub-headings that can guide your selection: THE TEAM AND THE PLANNING PROCESS, THE DESIGN PROCESS, EARLY CONSTRUCTION PLANS, AND THE NEXT THREE YEARS.
THE TEAM AND THE PLANNING PROCESS
I want to start with trying to talk about the scope of this project and one way to do that is to talk about all the people working it. There is the project committee, co-chaired by Rachel Merz, Jennie Keith and me --this group has been meeting almost weekly since the spring of 1999. It has on it over 20 people --faculty and student representatives from each of five departments, faculty appointments from other than the natural science division, staff from the Arboretum, the Facilities Department, Media Services, the Registrar's Office, the Development Office, the Treasurer, and more I am sure. Then there is a subset of this group --something we call the user's group--that Rachel chairs, consisting of faculty and students from the five departments involved in the project --chemistry, computer science, physics, math and stat, and biology. Don Shimamoto and Tom Hunter from Math and Stat. Michael Brown from Physics. Paul Rablen --Chemistry. Lisa Meeden and Charles Kelemen --C.S. And from Bio, Kathy Siwicki and Amy Vollmer. This group has done an immense amount of work, steering the overall project as well as addressing thousands of details that are involved in a project of this scope. Each department, in turn, has met as a department countless times in between committee meetings to develop program, review plans, make recommendations and comments. Someone could probably figure out the person hours that have been expended on the college side to get the project to where it is now, just in the last year and one-half since we selected the design team. It's somewhere between several thousand and a number a lot bigger than that.
Before I talk about the design team, I have to talk about the development effort that has gone on simultaneously with the project planning. Led by Dan West who has sat with the project committee since its inception, the development staff has done an amazing job of first learning about the project, finding out the right people to talk to, and then getting out and talking to hundreds of alums so far. The goal for the quiet phase of the campaign was to raise at least $100 million dollars by September, 2001, when the campaign goes public, and I dare say we will exceed that goal before the year 2000 ends. They have also, with the help of many faculty, held events on campus and off to create interest in this project --Dan's staff, many of whom are new to the college, are clearly good at what they do.
The design team. The size of the team itself speaks volumes about the complexity of this project. My project lists includes thirty-eight non-college people working on this project right now. The team is led by Cahal Stephens, principal-in-charge, with Einhorn Yaffee Prescott. Cahal has been working with the college for over three years now in developing the scope and design of this project and I cannot imagine a better choice and fit for Swarthmore. Kip Ellis is EYP'S project manager and he has proven himself a master of both process and detail. EYP's team includes many others,including a whole engineering team led by Ralph Gifford, another principal. Alongside EYP is the architectural firm of Helfand, Myerberg and Guggenheimer, led by Margaret Helfand and Jennifer Tulley. Margaret and Jennifer have been masters of creativity in this project, working to design what will be a remarkable facility, inside and out. Behind the design team is a whole series of consultants, Jon Morrison, structural engineer; Mara Baird and Michael Gladnick, responsible for landscape design and site and civil engineering; Rob Fini, our AV consultant; and then, cost, lighting, vibration and acoustical consultants to boot. Finally, Barclay-White serves as the project's construction manager, helping everyone look at constructability issues, cost estimates, site management, and schedule, Chris Hope and Chaz Riciardi lead this team which joined the project a little late but has made up for that by providing excellent quality work.
There are literally dozens of college facility staff that have worked on this project. Stu Hain and Janet Semler have led a remarkable effort. Mary Hasbrouck, Susan Smythe, Don Abramowitz, Tommy Cochrane, Claire Sawyers, Ralph Thayer, Mike Boyd, Jeff Jabco and Susan Sayer have also spent an extraordinary amount of time and effort in making this project successful. I also want to mention the valuable work of the green team (focused on environmental issues) led by Carr Everbach, who is also responsible for developing the wonderful project website. Carr has gone above and beyond here and I cannot imagine what we would have done without the resource of the web site.
I hope this gives people a sense of the scope of the project as well as acknowledges many of the people who have worked so diligently on the project. Before I move on, I have to just say one thing about Rachel's leadership. I am not easily amazed, but Rachel is in a VERY small category of awesome people. She deserves more credit than she will ever get for leading us all to the promised land.
THE DESIGN PROCESS
It is mid-November, 2000. The designers will be finished the design development drawings and specifications for the project in another month. The web site remains a great place to see the latest in design. After these are complete, our two cost estimators will once again return to the counting board and should deliver to us two independent estimates within three or four weeks. We then, along with all members of the design team and the two estimating firms, lock ourselves in a room for a few days and do what we call reconciliation. Sometimes, this involves a bit of personal reconciling as this process can be tense and some people whose name I won't mention because it is mine, can lose their patience and then have to apologize. Mostly, though, we go through each line item of the estimates, which are 100 pages or so, and make sure everything has been included that needs to be included and that each item is priced appropriately. In the end, we have one reconciled estimate and then we have to compare that estimate to budget. That of course is a lot of fun all by itself.
What usually happens (as in always happens), is that the estimate suggests that the project will cost a bit more than we had hoped and then we start what we call the VE process --that's stands for value engineering, where we try to "engineer" value into the project by removing things that cost money. This actually does work; a list of maybe 50 to 100 items gets tossed on the table --what if we buy the granite from a quarry in New Jersey and skip that wonderful excursion to Italy that I was counting on, or how about relocating the basement from an area where we just learned there was the hardest rock known to humankind to another part of the project where the rock lies below the grade of the finished basement? This VE process takes a while, and there is a lot of back and forth between designers, engineers and the college to come up with a final list which is reasonable, acceptable to the college and the users, and adds up to a number big enough to bring the project back to budget. In the science project, we have been through this a few times already and I suspect will have the pleasure of doing it once or twice more. It happens in every project and it is never easy, but always do-able. The committee has been very good here and worked hard each time to tighten up things appropriately.
EARLY CONSTRUCTION PLANS
As we continue the design process --construction drawings will begin after this VE process is completed in January or February-- we have worked diligently on examining the very complex issues of schedule, staging and swing space needs. The overall schedule calls for an early construction/demolition package, parts of which will commence this spring, and then the main construction project to begin next November. The early package includes: update of the college's electrical systems to handle the increased loads this project will demand; the relocation of fiber to ensure continued delivery of tel/data communications to Dupont as well as a number of other buildings throughout the construction process; the relocation of bathrooms and the physics dept office within the physics wing; the relocation of the chemistry dept office; the demolition of a significant part of existing Dupont (the lecture hall and the math wing); and the creation of a new temporary home for the math department on Whittier Place, where they will live for all three years of the project construction timetable. In addition, the existing rugby field will be lost this summer for the duration of the project and a new field will be built next to the leaf recycling center on the Nether Providence side of the creek to accommodate men's and women's teams.
Let me talk a bit longer-term --project schedule, campus disruption and the like. The project will get underway fully this summer and the entire complex is scheduled to open in fall 2004. Will there be disruption to the campus during these three years? Yes, there will be. Entrances to buildings will move from time to time, paths will be relocated, temporary paths will be built. We certainly hope and plan to keep disruption to a minimum and be clear about alternative paths and provide plenty of signs directing everyone, but things will not be easy for sure. We will not lose any parking spaces, but we will need to accomodate over 100 constructions vehicles, so parking lots may need to be re-structured --we will be taking over Dupont field for additional parking and project lay-down and storage.
THE NEXT THREE YEARS
Finally (yes, there will be an end to this), let me talk a bit about what people will see over the next three years in terms of a new building rising. The most visible first stages of this project will be utility relocation and building demolition. At the same time, there will be a lot of less visible activity, including the preparation of temporary spaces and the moving of faculty and staff. Sometime in the late fall, foundations will begin --big holes will appear in the ground, lots of earth will be moved from here to there and back again. Concrete footings will be poured and in February 2002, the steel will arrive. The new building will be framed in steel, except for one section where the Commons will be --that will have a concrete structure which allows for a larger space between floors for utility runs, something which is required in this building section. In general, the new construction will happen in sequence from west to east, with the Commons/Cornell addition happening first, finishing with the Chemistry addition along side the rugby field.
Once the steel is erected, the exterior walls can be built --this will happen for the Commons/Cornell addition in the early spring of '02 and for the Chemisty addition later in the spring. First the CMU back-up system (concrete masonry unit), then insulation and the stone veneer on top, which will be both schist and granite. Windows to follow, both curtain walls (large expanses of glass walls) and punched windows in the facade. All the meanwhile, a whole host of mechanically-related items are being installed and erected, such as duct mains and risers and storm and sanitary lines . Once the building is enclosed with a roof, interior work begins in the summer. Early in the summer of '02 for the Commons/Cornell addition and later for the Chemistry addition. The first new building completed will be the Commons/Cornell addition, by January 2003, followed by the Chemistry addition in May of '03.
The schedule for renovation begins once the new buildings are open and available for use, with Martin beginning in January 2003, and existing Physics, Chemistry and the Research Wing, starting in June 2003. Martin will be completed in July '03, the Annex in December '03, and Physics and Chemistry in the spring of '04. Our new science center will be fully up and running for fall of 2004, just in time to move all the construction fencing a little south to Parrish to begin that little project.
THE END
Send message to the chair of the Science Project User's Group, Rachel Merz (rmerz1@swarthmore.edu)
last updated 12/2/00
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