UGA's CCRC

New delivery system enabled timely completion of UGA project

by Scott Judy

Brasfield & Gorrie's Kennesaw, Ga., office led the recent construction of the $29 million Complex Carbohydrates Research Center, a world-class research facility at the University of Georgia's Athens campus.

The approximately 120,000-sq.-ft. CCRC building features state-of-the-art equipment and will take its place as one of the premier centers in the world for the study of carbohydrates.

"In terms of biology, the study of carbohydrates is the next big area," said Alan Darvill, CCRC director. "The building of this facility has given us a world-class research building that gives us space to recruit and attract world-class scientists to Georgia. It also gives us the space to house high-tech equipment we need to study the structures and functions of carbohydrates."

With the project's successful completion two months ahead of schedule - substantial completion occurred Sept. 29 instead of late November - the CCRC also has proven to be an important one for the UGA Real Estate Foundation, the project's developer. It was the first project of over $10 million that the foundation has tackled, and it stands as a showcase for the group's nontraditional approach.

In addition to securing financing - and eliminating any disruptions that can occur in a political, year-to-year funding situation - the major difference in the foundation's delivery method is its ability to impose liquidated damages for late completion and also to provide early-completion bonuses.

"We are able to do that, simply because we are a private foundation," said Krista Coleman-Silver, the foundation's project manager. "We have the freedom to write the contracts in a way that puts some of the onus on the contractor. It's just a different delivery system."

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The foundation's projects will typically be limited to revenue-generating facilities, such as research centers that attract grant funding, or dormitory buildings. Classroom and administration projects will remain the responsibility of the university.

For this project, Carter & Associates, Atlanta, served as the program manager. O'Neal Inc. of Atlanta was the project architect.

The Assignment

Construction began June 1, 2002, with the original completion date set for Nov. 29, 2003. However, an earlier date of July 29 loomed for completing a connected structure that will house a world-class neuro-magnetic resonance machine, itself valued at roughly $7 million. Having an appropriate housing facility for the NMR, considered the most powerful in the world, was necessary for CCRC to receive a particular grant from the National Institutes of Health and was the driving force for this project.

Because of this timetable, the section housing the NMR would start first. The contractor then progressed directly onto the roughly 300-ft.-long, 50-ft. wide, three-story concrete lab building, which is made up of spread footings, slab-on-grade, three floors of columns and three pan slabs and a structural steel roof. The NMR building is structural steel frame with block walls.

Because the NMR required that only a certain amount of ferrous material be included within a roughly 30- to 40-ft. radius, the building had to be oversized.

"We had to build it with enough room that the bulk of the steel was outside of the magnetic field of the magnet," said David Pritchett, project manager for Brasfield & Gorrie. "The magnet is 15 or 20 ft. tall, and the actual building is about 45 ft. tall in order to get all of the steel in the roof high enough to not affect the magnetic field. The building is about twice as tall as it would normally be."

The slab in this building features fiberglass rebar in order to reduce the amount of ferrous material, and landscaping outside the structure utilized hollies and other bushes that would prevent people from getting too close.

During this past summer, however, CCRC officials notified Brasfield & Gorrie that the delivery of the new NMR would be delayed, thereby canceling the need for the structure's early completion. The construction team then used it for storage for a period of time.

When delivered, the approximately 19-ton NMR will be sent in through a pair of 17- by-17-ft., bolted-down, structural-steel hatches in the roof and ceiling.

A red brick exterior and shingle roof is in keeping with the university style.

Keeping People Happy

Brasfield & Gorrie and the rest of the construction team had to keep two sets of people happy - those who would be using the building and everybody else.

For the users, Brasfield & Gorrie's management team worked most closely with Carl Bergmann, an associate research biochemist and CCRC's project manager. Bergmann's full-time job essentially switched to overseeing this project, a necessity because of its complexities.

"Very early on it became obvious we would need a scientist involved in order to get the building set up to do what we wanted it to do," Bergmann said. With the vast majority of the building dedicated to labs, each run by individual researchers, Bergmann's main job was communicating the very specific requirements of each researcher to the contractors and designers.

"My job was to be as clear and as explicit as I can be as to how we need the building to function," he said, adding that the scientists had very specific preferences and know what works well and what doesn't.

Pritchett said this part of the project was the most difficult.

"The most demanding [part] was the coordination of the lab requirements - getting all of the piping and equipment necessary for all of the lab equipment in the building," he added. "Probably 90 percent of the building is labs, and all of those areas are full of lab casework, lab gas, fume hoods, acid-waste systems, vacuum systems and lab gas systems. With three or four [sub]contractors working on each lab, the coordination between the building systems and the lab systems was probably the most difficult."

Preconstruction coordination between the owner/user group, the subcontractors, designer and Brasfield & Gorrie was critical. While labs would be individualized according to the researcher's needs, it was necessary from a cost and time standpoint that all of the labs fit into an efficient, cost-effective design with built-in redundancies.

"We were able to sit down and figure out a system for a type of lab," Pritchett said. "Most of the labs are replicas of each other." A redundant design for the entire facility actually made it easier to accommodate researcher requests.

"We tried to standardize things as much as possible," Bergmann said. With a standard design in place, when individual requests came along, "We were able to do that on the fly," he added.

Lab construction actually went smoothly, Pritchett added. He credited the subcontractors for their design-stage coordination of the mechanical, electrical, plumbing and other systems.

"Most of the above-ceiling coordination was done by our subs," he said. "They did an outstanding job. Very few times did we have to come in and alter something in the field. Well over 90 percent of it fit perfectly."

Bergmann, who has overseen previous CCRC projects, said he was impressed with this construction team's ability to accommodate the owner through this process.

"We had a contractor and an architect that were very team-oriented," he added. "This is the fourth project we've done with [O'Neal]. We had never worked with Brasfield & Gorrie before, but they were very good at listening to what we had to say."

Everybody Else

The contractor's ability to respond was also important in dealing with outside interests, such as governmental and citizen environmental groups, and campus officials, such as the arborist.

Located next to the Oconee River and in the middle of a site dominated by old-growth trees - including a group of trees being grown as part of a 20-year-old UGA experiment to replace the previously extinct American chestnut - the construction team's activities fell under several watchful eyes.

The sitework stage had its concerns because erosion from the 10-acre, red-clay site offered plenty of potential for runoff into the adjacent Oconee River. With the offices of the state's Environmental Protection Division literally across the river from the building site, the contractors were being watched closely and constantly.

"We had major erosion-control concerns," Pritchett said, adding that the company used several temporary ponds, lots of riprap material, a couple miles of double-row silt fence and mulch to minimize the site's impact on the river.

The trees were equally protected.

"We were absolutely forbidden from touching a leaf on those [experimental American chestnut] trees," which were contained within a fenced-off tree protection area, Pritchett said. Numerous other tree types populated the site and also were protected as much as possible.

"We walked the site with the campus arborist and several other people who were involved before we cleared any trees," Pritchett added. "We made a great attempt to save as many trees as possible. We tried our best to accommodate the concerns of all of the groups that were interested in the environmental impact of the building."

The Results

If there's one thing everyone agrees on, it's the results.

"The project turned out as well, if not better, than we had hoped for," said Coleman-Silver. "Brasfield & Gorrie really came through on budget as well as schedule better than we had hoped."

More important, though, is the perspective of the lead end user, CCRC Director Darvill.

"The project turned out fantastically well," he said. "Brasfield & Gorrie did a really fine job, as did the architect and the project managers. We had a first-class team from top to bottom. It was a tremendous thing to be a part of."

The CCRC's most involved person, Bergmann, was also highly complimentary.

"It was great," he said. "It wasn't flawless, but we've had 160 to 170 people move into this building within a month. We're up and working."

Project Team:

Owner: University Architects for Facilities Planning, University of Georgia, Athens
Developer: University of Georgia Real Estate Foundation, Athens
General Contractor: Brasfield & Gorrie, Kennesaw, Ga.
Program Manager: Carter & Associates, Atlanta
Architect: O'Neal Inc., Atlanta

Useful sources:

http://www.ccrc.uga.edu