Newton, MA – When students left school grounds for vacation this summer, construction crews took their place to begin work on renovations and repairs of campus facilities all over New England. Summer is the season of compressed construction schedules, commonly referred to in the A/E/C industry as “Summer Slammers.” Commodore Builders, based in Newton has completed over a dozen of these projects in the summer of 2013.
While most dream of spending their summer on the beach, Commodore Builders’ project managers and superintendents were busy working with institutional clients revamping campuses for the upcoming school year.
Laboure College, a nursing college originally located in Dorchester, moved to a new campus in Milton, Massachusetts. The new Milton campus is a mansion originally built in the 1850’s; it includes two additions that were added in the 1960’s. Commodore Builders performed extensive site work, and updates to the electrical systems, HVAC and plumbing. A new elevator was installed, along with two handicap lifts, a handicap entrance ramp and entirely new fire protection
and fire alarm systems. Commodore’s Project Manager, Tom Buie, explained that projects such as Laboure College require the construction manager to keep everyone focused on the end date every single day. “My job is to keep the entire team focused on the critical daily decisions that need to be made. One missing detail can have a disastrous impact on an end date. It’s not always obvious to everyone in the moment, but it’s the only way we can manage risk and deliver projects on time.”
Tom Buie also managed Tufts University’s Dewick – McPhie Dining Hall renovations this summer. The school invested in major upgrades to the HVAC units, duct distribution, kitchen exhausts and fire alarms. The project addressed deferred maintenance items including replacement of the roofs where new equipment was located and replacement of clerestory windows. The columns sustaining the roof were strengthened to support the new roof top units (RTUs), chillers, and makeup air units (MAUs).
For the Tufts project, the Commodore team utilized BIM/3D modeling, strategic pre-purchasing of selected equipment and input from subcontractors to accurately schedule and coordinate the installation of the dunnage and the new mechanical equipment. The project team collaborated closely with the client, architect, commissioning agent, engineers, manufacturers and subcontractors to keep the full team focused on the intractable end date. According to Buie, “Those kids are coming back one way or the other. There’s no such thing as schedule slippage.”
Academic institutions typically schedule campus work in phases over the course of multiple summers to avoid major disruptions during the school year and to accommodate annual budgets for renovation work. Although these summer projects are often smaller in scale, the shorter schedules present complex logistical challenges. An early, comprehensive planning approach helps to address these issues. Close collaboration between the design team and school administration is imperative to set priorities, determine budget, define scope and constructability, and call attention to long lead items.
If you and your college bound children visited prospective schools this summer such as the Boston Architectural College, Wellesley College, MIT, Harvard University, Mount Ida College, Phillips Andover Academy, Laboure College or Tufts University, you likely saw Commodore crews working around the clock to meet the the hard stop deadline of mid-August.
But, if you were a parent dropping your kids off for the start of another school year…the Commodore construction crews were all gone.