Georgia Aquarium

Owner: The Marcus Foundation, Atlanta
Location: Atlanta
Cost: $200 million
Contractor: Brasfield & Gorrie, Kennesaw, Ga.
Architect, Base Building: Thompson, Ventulett Stainback & Associates, Atlanta
Architect, Exhibit Spaces and Theming: Peckham Guyton Albers & Viets, St. Louis

With an overall value of more than $200 million, the Georgia Aquarium is certainly a generous and visionary gift from Bernie Marcus, head of the Marcus Foundation and co-founder of Atlanta-based Home Depot.

Touted as one of the largest aquariums in the world, it will feature more than 55,000 animals from approximately 500 species and an estimated 7.2 million gallons of fresh and salt water.

"This is the most intense project - for everybody within our company - that we've ever been involved in," said Eric Young, division manager for general contractor Brasfield & Gorrie of Kennesaw, Ga. "It's probably the most complex (aquarium) structure we've seen anywhere. With all of the aquariums (we've visited), I've never seen anything like it."

Brasfield & Gorrie managed the Georgia Aquarium project as if it were six smaller projects - the base building, exhibits, parking deck, 4-D theater, food court and gift shops.

Of course, certain aspects of the building had never been constructed within the city of Atlanta. Features such as the "Tunnel Ride," Kid Crawl areas and the tanks themselves made permitting, construction and inspections especially challenging. Additionally, life-safety requirements for many exhibit areas were not completely understood until the areas were actually built.

Another unique aspect of the project was the utilization of multiple design teams. While Thompson, Ventulett Stainback & Associates designed the base building, Peckham Guyton Albers & Viets focused on the exhibit spaces and the facility's theming.

As the construction process moved toward completion, the project demanded portions of the approximately 440,000-sq.-ft. building be turned over in sequence so the aquarium's start-up schedule could be met.

The roughly 14 phased areas projected for turnover required that all work, including punchlist items, be complete and all inspections from the city of Atlanta finalized, with a temporary certificate of occupancy issued for each phase.

In most phases, this resulted in additional scopes of work being added at the end in order to complete the owner's requests prior to turnover.

Brasfield & Gorrie coordinated a team of subcontractors that included firms from across the country and Canada. The team included three different faux rockwork/theming subcontractors that utilized different techniques to achieve the final results.

This work had to be "art-directed," according to Brasfield & Gorrie, to create a final product that was tailor-made for each exhibit.

Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the Georgia Aquarium's construction was its timetable. Brasfield & Gorrie officially broke ground on the project on June 9, 2003. The aquarium was scheduled to be completed, fully stocked and open to the public on Nov. 23 of this year.