Category: 9 Best Building Project – General Contractor ($10 ‐ $40 Million)
Contractor: Nunn Construction
Project Name: University of Colorado at Colorado Springs – Academic Office Building
In October 2012, Nunn Construction, was awarded the Design-Build Contract to design and
construct the University of Colorado Colorado Spring (UCCS) Academic Office Building
(AOB).
Nunn Construction, Inc. teamed up with Slaterpaull Architects to provide Design
Services under Nunn’s Design-Build contract. Our goal was to assist UCCS address their need
for additional office and conference space for the faculty and staff.
The University of Colorado Colorado Springs is one of the fastest growing Universities in the
State of Colorado. This unprecedented growth has caused a severe shortage of offices and
conference space for faculty and staff. Many of the full time and part time instructional faculty
share offices which are often only 80 to 90 square feet in size. That’s not much bigger than a
walk-in closet.
The strategic plan called out for the design and construction of primarily open offices as well as
a limited amount of enclosed offices. The plan also required conference meeting space with high
tech audio and visual capabilities. In addition, support services will be required including copy
rooms, storage rooms, kitchens, and informal meeting areas. The project would have to consider
future growth with flexibility to add more staff and faculty. UCCS mandated an energy efficient
design unmatched on the current campus with innovative sustainable design. The project must
be LEED Gold. The site chosen was a 1.6 acre site and sits at the front and center of the UCCS
Campus bordering the Austin Bluffs Parkway to the South and Regent Circle to the North. This
building would be “The Gateway” to one of the fastest growing Universities in this region.
The design was required to meet or exceed the Owner’s requirements set out in the UCCS
Strategic Program while meeting the Owner’s fixed and limited budget. There were some
definitive parameters the Design-Build Team was faced with from the beginning of the project.
These parameters included:
1) A small and confined site to construct this building that was required to be so flexible for
future growth.
2) Unparalleled energy performance including a LEED Gold building with optimal energy
performance of 40% higher than ASHRAE 90.1 minimum.
3) Design with acoustical considerations to protect the adjacent office to the Austin Bluffs
Parkway (50’ to the South of the new AOB) which gets thousands of vehicles per day.
4) A short time to design the project with a substantial amount of requirements for approvals
of multiple times by the design review board. The total time from Notice to Proceed with
Design to site construction was 7 months.
5) There were numerous construction issues to overcome during the on-site construction
process.
Site:
The site is a small 1.6 acre site with a major thoroughfare to the South, Austin Bluffs Parkway.
In addition to being a small and restrictive site, the property had extensive grade changes
including over 18’ of fall from the North to the South.
Our Design-Build Team worked
extensively on fitting our proposed building on this site with extensive grade changes. We
designed the main entrance on the 2nd floor of the building facing North some 15’ higher than the
parking to the West. To accommodate this grade change we instituted a separate entrance on the
1st floor. Careful considerations were given to site accessibility and interior floor to height
restrictions. Our design and construction allowed ample user access and minimal slope to our
new sidewalks to allow the maximum 2% slope for handicap accessibility.
Energy:
In one of our early sustainable meetings with the University and its staff, UCCS challenged our
team to design and construct a mechanical system with over 40% savings of ASHRAE 90.1
baseline. This required early and accurate systems analysis on costs and energy of efficiencies of
other types of cooling systems to achieve this ambitious goal.
Our team landed on a
direct/indirect evaporative cooling system which fit our budget and delivered a 40% savings of
energy use over ASHRAE 90.1 baseline energy models. The schedule challenge this new cooling
system created was a total rework of the interior space 2 months into the design. The new
Evaporative Cooling System utilized 2 enormous units that were 30’ long, 12’ wide and 12’ tall
that had to be installed in the 1st floor mechanical room before the steel was erected overhead.
Having an early design on the units released by our mechanical engineer and an accurate
estimate of costs by our estimators allowed the University the confidence to releasing these units
in May of 2013 some 3 months before we established the Guaranteed Maximum Price. This
early release allowed us to install these 5 month lead items in late September of 2013 prior to our
steel erection. Since the building opened for business in July of 2014, we have had some of the
most challenging outside air temperatures and high humidity days on record. Our system has
performed effectively in keeping indoor air temperatures comfortable for the faculty and staff.
Our team also incorporated an energy efficient lighting design. The design team created a
building footprint 60’ wide from north to south for optimum day lighting to the major floor
plates. The design included day lighting into all interior offices and work rooms using high
clerestory windows between offices and hallways. The project also included water savings of
40% over the LEED baseline. Nunn delivered the most energy efficient building on campus
which also will yield a low ongoing operating cost to UCCS.
Acoustical Considerations:
The new Academic Office Building sits approximately 50 feet from Austin Bluffs Parkway,
which serves thousands of vehicles a day. This was a challenge for acoustic considerations for
the offices on the South side of the building. It was important that we provide a design and
construction that limited the traffic sound transmission as much as possible while still
considering a limited budget. After a completed and thorough analysis of the offices that would
be impacted, our team implemented a design that would minimize the noise transfer to the
faculty offices adjacent to the traffic. Our design and construction included special laminated
glass panels on the 1st through 3rd floors on the South, East, & West elevations of the building.
This special laminated glass lowered the sound transmission rate allowing a quieter office
environment.
Added Value:
The Design-Build team faced a challenge when finalizing the interior office planning. The
leaders of the University wanted 175 offices initially. After our award and during early meetings
with the users, who were the academic departments who would occupy the building, it was
determined that the open office concept would not allow Faculty/Student privacy. A major shift
in interior design occurred to accommodate the privacy issue. Our Design team proposed a
100% individual office layout with small gathering areas for informal meetings. This brought
our office count down to 100 offices some 75 office short of the original program.
The
University & Nunn analyzed the potential of adding a 5th floor to increase the office count.
Nunn did a quick yet accurate analysis of cost to add the 5th floor. The University weighed their
options and gave our team the OK to proceed with the 5th floor design and construction 4 months
into the design schedule. This brought the total offices count to 125.
In addition to site and weather complications, there were late change orders that challenged our
team. In March of 2014, it was determined that Nunn Construction had developed enough
savings on the project to allow the Owner to change the specified ceramic tile in the lobbies and
atrium to the terrazzo. The terrazzo was an early wish from the Owner but they soon gave up on
the idea in the conceptual design because of budget considerations. Due to Nunn’s budget
management, Nunn offered the Owner the opportunity to add $75,000 of terrazzo to the project
without an increase in the GMP. The Owner was ecstatic and released our team in April of 2014
to make this revision. The terrazzo would take 3 weeks longer to construct in a critical area of
the entrances, lobbies, & atrium. Nunn revised the schedule and worked with key trade partners
to overcome this challenge.
In closing, Nunn Construction’s Design-Build Team delivered a highly efficient building that
will yield ongoing operation savings to UCCS for the life of the building.
Nunn Construction is particularly proud of the fact that we designed and built “The Gateway” to
the fastest growing University in the region.