Perfecting the Planning Process

S. M. Wilson tackles its largest and most complex project to date

By Bridget McCrea

As the adage goes, “planning makes perfect,” and when it comes to huge construction projects, there’s no better investment in success than in-depth, front-end planning. With its largest and most complex project to date on the drawing board, S. M. Wilson & Co. opted for this philosophy last year after being chosen to provide pre-construction and construction management services for a new healthcare facility in St. Louis.

The project, which kicked off in the summer of 2007, is jointly owned by Washington University School of Medicine (WUSM) and Barnes-Jewish Hospital, with the help of a $30 million gift over five years from BJC HealthCare. For these entities, S. M. Wilson is heading up the construction of the new BJC Institute of Health at Washington University, to be located at the corner of Children’s Place and Euclid Avenue on the Washington University Medical Center campus in St. Louis.

When completed in December 2009, the 11-story, 675,500-square-foot building will house facilities for both WUSM and Barnes-Jewish Hospital. The first five floors will be constructed as flexible shell space for Barnes-Jewish Hospital’s anticipated expansion. The first- and second-floor shell spaces will accommodate the dietary department, including a kitchen, dining hall, and a specially designated area where the staff will serve meal items.

The additional space may include pharmaceutical, clinical, and laboratory areas, while the sixth floor will accommodate the building’s mechanical systems. The upper five floors will be the hub for the research and laboratory facilities of WUSM’s BioMed 21 initiative. The lower level will include a WUSM Vivarium, a new shipping and receiving area, a tunnel beneath Euclid Avenue (large enough for tractor-trailer traffic), and a new roadway. Packing all these elements into a small space proved challenging for S. M. Wilson, which was left with little to no room for storage and staging. To work through the obstacle, the company came up with a just-in-time delivery method, which ensures that at any given time only those materials and equipment that  are absolutely necessary are on-site.

Also challenging is that the project is being built over MetroLink, an active, above-ground light rail system that will tunnel underneath the structure and require extensive MEP (mechanical, electrical, and plumbing) relocations and connections to the campus services. “Not only is this a very tight site, but it’s in the middle of our urban campus,” said Rick Schaefer, who was the director of design and construction for WUSM at the time.

Schaefer said the project owners relied on S. M. Wilson to help with those issues, and the contractor also assisted with finding less expensive ways of getting the job done. “The most important aspect of having a contractor onboard early is for the pre-construction services that it can provide and the knowledge it has of how the buildings are put together,” said Schaefer, whose team reviewed four proposals before selecting S. M. Wilson. “This helps both the owner and the architect design the building, while also helping from a cost standpoint.”

Planning for LEED Certification

A more than $200 million project, the new BJC Institute of Health was designed and is being built to achieve Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification. Some of the tactics being employed include a pollution-prevention plan; water-efficient landscaping; an optimized energy-performance plan; use of recycled and local materials; and the use of low-emitting materials, increased ventilation, and outdoor air-delivery monitoring.

Developed by the U.S. Green Building Council, the LEED Green Building Rating System provides standards for environmentally sustainable construction. Different LEED versions have varied scoring systems based on a set of required “prerequisites” and a variety of “credits,” equaling 69 possible points in various categories. There are four levels of certification: Platinum, Gold, Silver, and Certified.

Rich Hendzlik, program director for Barnes-Jewish Hospital and WUSM, called the front-end planning “extremely pivotal” for this project, mainly because the owners had their sights set on a 2009 completion date. “We had to figure out how to deliver a building of this size very quickly,” Hendzlik said. Key strategies included the fast-track delivery of architectural drawings, quick decisions on the structural materials (steel versus concrete),and reviewing the alternatives for the MetroLink.

“We had to get rid of the remnants of an old parking structure that was over the MetroLink, and S. M. Wilson came up with a clever plan to incorporate that structure as part of the steel erection process,” Hendzlik said. “They then figured out a way to remove it at a later date, and it wound up working out very well.”

Overcoming Obstacles

For the last year or so, Schaefer said, the project owners, contractor, engineer, and architect have been participating in weekly “team meetings” that are run by S. M. Wilson. There, the crew discusses the overall project, timelines, challenges, accomplishments, and other issues that help keep the project on track.

Dean Foth, senior project manager for S. M. Wilson, has worked on the Barnes-Jewish Hospital campus for the last five years. He said a key issue that’s been addressed both during and outside of those meetings is the MetroLink situation. “In the RFP, the project’s owners asked the proposing contractors how they would handle this obstacle,” Foth said. “We came up with a program by which we would build past the MetroLink and over the top of its tunnel and avoid having to spend 10 months removing an existing structure in order to complete the first level of the new building.”

Such foresight has helped keep the BJC Institute of Health on its tight schedule, despite the obstacles being put in its way by Mother Nature. “If we could just make it stop raining, it would be great,” Foth said. “We haven’t been able to work a full week since early March, but overall the project is still moving very well in the right direction.” Foth added that the project is on schedule. With 10 bid packages currently active, the project is being delivered on a “fast-track basis,” according to Foth, who added that the “design team provides me with enough to keep the animal fed.” Six of the bid packages are currently under construction, including the building of a tunnel and road, and the installation of the structural steel.

To meet the project’s timelines, Foth said S. M. Wilson planned ahead accordingly for the delivery ofthe structural steel. “One of our strategies involved issuing the structural steel package back in August 2007, before we even knew what was going to be put in the building and what would be on the exterior skin,” Foth explained. “In order for us to get the number of shapes and sizes of the steel necessary, we had to place our order early in the process.”

With all the recent advancements in medical testingand research, Hendzlik is looking forward to the opening of the new facility next year. “The BJC Institute of Health will allow researchers to speed developments into treatments to improve patient care,” he said. “The building also is an important component in the future master facility planning of Barnes-Jewish Hospital, as the hospital strives to create room to meet the increasing demand for inpatient beds. Ultimately, the facility will benefit the entire community.”

OSHA on Your Side  By Tom Burns, S. M. Wilson safety director

Named as one of the largest projects in St. Louis, by the St. Louis Business Journal, the $200 million BJC Institute of Health at Washington University project was accepted for the United States Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) Strategic Partnership Program (OSPP). The BJC Institute of Health was chosen for the OSPP based on the project’s complexity and heightened safety responsibility. The agreement with OSHA was signed by S. M. Wilson & Co. on September 25, 2007. S. M. Wilson’s agreement marked the 11th OSPP that OSHA has signed in the St. Louis area and it is the first agreement on the Washington University School of Medicine and Barnes-Jewish Hospital campus. Traditionally, OSHA’s strategy has been to enforce workplace safety and health standards; however, the OSPP is a collaborative agreement, which allows OSHA to partner with the contractor.  By signing the OSPP, S. M. Wilson is entrusted by OSHA to hold higher safety standards and become a self governing safety force on the jobsite, with OSHA visits occurring on a planned quarterly schedule.  The OSPP requires a contractor to be proactive with all safety operations by tracking monthly training minutes, conducting a monthly site-wide safety meeting, enforcing a zero tolerance policy for safety violations and achieving safety rates below the national industry average. Overall, the OSPP provides the contractor with an opportunity to be self-regulating and run a safer more efficient jobsite. The OSPP changes the way every stakeholder on the project practices jobsite safety; it is a learning experience.  “The data and analysis gathered from the OSPP process provides our organizations with performance metrics that prompt us to continually improve and surpass industry benchmarks for workers safety,” said Jerry Glotzer, director of regulatory compliance for Barnes-Jewish Hospital.  “With the Partnership in place, more than 500 tradesman will be impacted with effective, on-going training and an increased working knowledge of potential hazards that may be encountered on the project,” stated Anne Sweet, S. M. Wilson’s onsite safety coordinator.  Therefore, this partnership will not only strengthen the health and safety knowledge of the construction trades on this project, but impact attitudes about working safely on projects for years to come.