'Building a Better Mizzou': A complex team effort

uilding a Better Mizzou” wasn’t a catch phrase on campus in the 1890s when Frederick Bell personally designed and then supervised the construction of the six structures comprising MU’s “Red Campus.”

Design Project Manager Bobb Swanson, left, and Construction Project Manager Tom Wieck inspect progress on Cornell Hall.

Nor was the phrase around at the turn of the century when James P. Jamieson began putting up limestone buildings that would be called the “White Campus.”

And the expression wasn’t heard in the 1950s when architects and engineers began designing beige-brick structures that some call MU’s “Buff Campus.”

"Building a Better Mizzou”

But MU faculty, staff and students are now aware of the slogan, as are their counterparts at other Big 12 schools. MU is in the midst of yet a fourth building boom — “Building a Better Mizzou” — a $500 million building program begun a decade-or-so ago.

Overseen by Campus Facilities’ Don Guckert, Director of CF’s Planning, Design and Construction department, the program has resulted in the addition of nearly 3 million square feet of classroom, research, office and parking space that has increased the size of the MU campus by nearly 33 percent. Reynolds Alumni and Visitors Center, Hulston Hall, the Anheuser-Busch Natural Resources Building, Lee Hills Hall, Clydesdale Hall and the Sports Park Complex are just some of the standout structures representing this growth on the MU campus.

Other major construction presently being overseen by PD&C’s design and construction project managers are Cornell Hall, the $28-million, Red Campus-style home of the College of Business, the $15 million Virginia Avenue Parking Structure, the $8.6 million Hospital & Clinics South Addition ER and the $38-million, Red Campus-style Capacity Addition to the MU power plant, being built to keep up with the utility needs of the new buildings.

And, buildings proposed for vital university functions include new student residence halls to replace certain 1950s and ‘60s “Buff Campus” residence halls; the Life Sciences building; the expansion of Brady Commons; an expanded student recreation center; an addition to McKee Hall; a ‘technology incubation’ facility in Research Park; renovations to Engineering Building East; a basketball arena; and a performing arts center.

MU: A Complex Construction Environment

A consistently high volume of construction activity on the MU campus necessitates that PD&C manage small, under-$60,000 projects with its Design and Construction Services unit. Larger projects are contracted for with off-campus design consultants and contractors, with PD&C’s Project Management and Construction Management units overseeing virtually all such construction.

The construction process today is vastly different from past ‘red,’ ‘white,’ and ‘buff’ campus efforts. A complex, highly specialized, interactive life-cycle approach to construction, based on changing building codes, technology and techniques, and the negotiation of strategic business relationships, now exists for adding needed space to existing campus buildings or erecting new ones.

Senior design project manager and professional civil engineer Larry Hubbard (center) fields questions from, far left, counter clockwise: Parking & Transportation's Jim Joy; PD&C's Construction Project Manager Bob Berg; Maintenance's Don Dennis; and Landscape Services' Mark Jarvis. PD&C's licensed and private-industry-experienced P Ms provide expert civil, mechanical and electrical engineering consultation in all phases of the planning, design and construction of campus buildings.

Guckert’s PD&C project management team makes it look easy, and with good reason: They’re involved in, and on top of, matters from the beginning. Design project managers (P Ms) and construction project managers (C P Ms) are charged with leading and managing each project from its paperwork inception and design through the final phases of construction. Project managers work with MU clients, managing the efforts of architects and engineers, ensuring that campus clients, stakeholders in the project and institutional requirements are satisfied. During actual construction, C P Ms are on-site daily, troubleshooting and overseeing the work of the contractors and subcontractors.

Prior to their tenure at MU, PD&Cs five project managers were professionally licensed design-and-construction consultants in private industry. At MU, each is personally responsible for some 12 to 15 ongoing projects, while providing expert mechanical, electrical, civil engineering and architectural “backup” for some 50 other projects underway on campus. In addition to their collective expertise and experience, project managers are also supported by the whole of CF’s PD&C department, a complex and sophisticated organization of diverse expertise, talent and experience in construction design, accounting and contract administration.

MU Campus Construction: More Than Other UM Campuses Combined

Construction at MU represents some 60 percent of the total construction workload in the UM system. A Research I Institution with top-ranked education and research programs, student life, a major medical center, power plant and intercollegiate athletics, MU operates on a scale of complexity and magnitude far greater than UMSL, UMKC and UMR combined.

On any given workday — and for over a decade now — some 500-1,000 construction workers, representing nearly 20 different specialties — e.g. carpenters, masons, pipe fitters, electricians, plumbers, iron workers — are plying their trades on campus construction sites.

“PD&C activities are some of the highest profile work done by facilities management people on any campus. Unlike other physical plant activities, such as maintenance, custodial services, landscape services and utilities, construction activities are outside the daily routine of campus operations. Design and construction projects thus command greater attention and interest from campus administration than do other activities of the facilities organization” Guckert said.

Construction Expenditures

Planning, Design and Construction functions without benefit of general operating monies. Project and construction management at MU is thus 100 percent recharge-funded, reflecting the campus view that project budgets should carry the cost of management services. Staffing therefore fluctuates to meet the campus project workload.

Annual project expenditures for renovations and new construction — funded through state appropriations, bonds, donations, grants and reserves — averages annually $75 million. PD&C’s total annual budget this year, then, is approximately 3.5 percent of this amount; with just less than one percent of this total budgeted for Project Management.

“It’s a modest investment that is recouped several times over in cost-avoidance, higher facility operating efficiencies, fewer change-orders, lower building life-cycle costs, and improved comfort and minimized disruptions to facilities users over the life of the building,” said Guckert.

MU’s Project/Construction Management: Buildings on time, within budget

Project managers and construction project managers are continually challenged with limited budgets, time constraints, imperfect designs, high costs, project scope creep, contract disputes and client expectations. Even so, in the past ten-or-so boom years of campus growth, virtually all projects have been completed on schedule and all within budget, a track record envied in the construction industry.

“MU enjoys a national reputation in higher education facilities management,” said Alan Warden, Assistant Vice Chancellor – Facilities. “And PD&C’s coordinated, comprehensive approach in the management of campus planning, design and construction is seen by our peers as an industry model.”