The challenge
The university needed to replace two 1960s science buildings without losing a single semester of lab teaching. The new complex had to rise on the only available site — a tight parcel between an occupied residence hall, a historic chapel and the campus central plant.
Research labs demanded vibration criteria of 2,000 micro-inches per second, a 100% outside-air system and a vivarium with its own redundant power — all inside a guaranteed maximum price set by the state.
Our approach
Stanwick joined as construction manager at-risk during schematic design. Over nine months of preconstruction we ran four cost models, a constructability review of 1,400 drawing sheets and a full-scale mock-up of a typical teaching lab, which faculty used to settle 180 design questions before bidding.
We sequenced the structure in three pours per floor so that chapel services were never interrupted, and we prefabricated 312 lab casework assemblies and 96 overhead utility racks off-site to cut ceiling work by eleven weeks.
“Stanwick treated the first day of class like a launch date. They never once asked us to move it.”Raymond Okoye, Vice President for Facilities
The result
Students moved in on August 19 — exactly as scheduled at contract award. The project closed out $2.4M under the guaranteed maximum price, with the savings returned to the university for laboratory equipment.
- $2.4Mreturned under the GMP
- 0lost-time incidents in 780,000 hours
- 38%energy use below code baseline
- 41%local and small-business participation
