News Flash

This Just In…Teamwork Succeeds at Fast-Track Journalism School

Not only is ASU’s Cronkite School of Journalism a colorful new addition to the downtown Phoenix landscape, but its collaborative educational function reflects the unprecedented teamwork that occurred between its designers and contractors during construction.

The newest building in the downtown Phoenix campus of Arizona State University has gone from concept to completion in less than two years.

Design architect Steven Erhlich Architects conceived the look of the Cronkite School’s unique three-color metal panel exterior skin based upon the interesting patterns found in FCC frequency allocation charts.

Photo by Patti Reznik Photography

Located at Central Avenue and Taylor Street, the 223,000-sq-ft Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication was originally slated to be part of One Central Park East, a developer-driven project a couple of blocks to the south.

But because of a changing economic climate in 2006, the developer downsized One Central Park East, which drove the square footage cost too high for the university, says Michael Jackson, managing principal of HDR Architecture in Phoenix, the architect-of-record on the project.

Yet the school was still needed for classes by this fall’s semester, so ASU asked the City of Phoenix to step in and manage the $71 million project.

“It dropped in our laps in August 2006, just a few days before the grand opening of the first phase of the ASU downtown campus,” says Tauny Woo, Phoenix’s assistant city engineer. “This gave us exactly two years from notification that we had a project that we had to manage and have completed, one which would normally take three or four years.”

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Within a week, the city had issued an advertisement for the design-build contract, requesting that contractors and architects self-team before bidding.

In addition to HDR, the winning team is made up of design architect Steven Ehrlich Architects of Culver City, Calif., and Tempe-based Sundt Construction Inc.

Even before the interview, the team “built a plan that would be necessary for the construction, design and permitting process,” says Terry Abair, project director with Sundt. “Part of that plan included using key subcontractors that were sole-sourced to our team, so I picked the subs that I thought were best at preconstruction and holding budgets and put them on our team before we ever interviewed for the project.

“We actually had an anticipated design scheme and a schedule for the building when we went to the interview.”

Another unusual step for the team was to set up a shared working environment, or “war room” as some called it, in HDR’s offices.

“Our interview was Friday afternoon, and at 6:30 p.m. we got the award,” says Elaine Solomon, science and technology principal with HDR. “On Monday at 7 a.m. you’d walk in here and its down and dirty, ripping out cubicles and putting in folding tables and chairs, and IT support making it so that Sundt’s computers were able to plug into their network as well as ours.”

The project, which features sustainable touches such as passive solar shading, occupancy light sensors and a stainless steel drape system on some windows, is on track for LEED silver certification.

For the first six months of the project, Sundt’s team worked from HDR’s offices every day. The engineers and design-assist subcontractors moved in too, including University Mechanical and Performance Contracting Inc. of Tempe; Chandler-based Sun Eagle Corp.; Sundt’s own heavy civil and concrete divisions; and Phoenix-based firms Kearney Electric, ThyssenKrupp Elevator and K.T. Fabrication.

“With everybody working together in the same room, there were no e-mails back and forth or calling and waiting for a response,” Woo says.

Jackson adds, “You get much better decisions because you are applying a lot more expertise coming from different viewpoints in a much shorter timeframe than you do with a normal process.”

The team mulled over numerous decisions, always going back to how it would affect the tight schedule and budget.

“One big decision was whether to have a basement or not,” Jackson says. The project uses Northwind, a chilled water system serving downtown Phoenix that would normally be piped in through the basement. But there wasn’t enough time in the schedule to excavate and construct the basement, so they tucked a mechanical room into one corner of the ground floor.

In addition to the journalism school, the six-story building will include general classroom space, several ground-floor retail spaces and studios for KAET/Channel 8, Arizona’s PBS station. Due to the size and weight of sets and equipment, television studios are usually built at-grade. However, this would have required a series of transfer beams to pick up the columns carrying the weight of the additional stories above the studio, “and that was an expense we couldn’t incur,” Jackson says.

HDR created a ‘war room’ in their offices where contractor Sundt Construction, engineers and key subcontractors worked together on the design. HDR has since upgraded the collaborative space in preparation for $185 million ASU’s ISTB IV, which will feature much of the same team.

Photo courtesy HDR

As a result, KAET’s studios are on the top floor, which is steel-framed to provide the needed 28-ft height and ample 60-ft clear spans. In contrast, the rest of the structure is post-tensioned concrete atop drilled piers.

The entire building wasn’t framed in steel due to lengthy lead time needed to fabricate the amounts needed, Jackson says.

A super-flat floor was required for the studio’s 1,500-lb camera pedestals. “If the floor was out of level so much as 1/8 in. over 3 ft, they would roll,” Abair says. “This is an unusual element because usually super-flat floors are on-grade.”

After the post-tensioned deck was installed, crews went back and applied a colored concrete topping on it. “Our concrete guys put in rails to screed it off in strips, so the only grinding that had to be done was at the screed joints, and it was minimal even there,” Abair says. It was then polished to achieve the final result.

The building will offer students ample flexibility with 280 workstations that can be used for a variety of media uses such as writing, producing radio and video packages, creating Web sites and pulling satellite feeds.

There are five functioning newsrooms and two television studios dedicated solely to students, designed as collaborative spaces to reflect the function of modern journalism, says Christopher Callahan the school’s dean.

“The design team took great pains to make sure that the newsrooms are not only a visible part of the interior building, but the exterior,” Callahan says. Pedestrians walking by the building will be able to see students working through the large expanse of windows. “By the same token, those students will be able to look out and see a very vibrant city and will know that they aren’t just on some typical college campus, but in fact they are in the middle of the fifth largest city in the country.”

A two-story gathering space dubbed the First Amendment Forum was placed in the center of the building and features multiple television screens that will feed all of the major news networks to students.

Both Sundt and HDR plan on using this project as a model for future endeavors. “For every client who is open to this process, we wouldn’t do it any other way because the results are so much better,” Jackson says. “When you literally don’t have a change order on a project, it gets their attention.”

Abair has worked in the industry for 35 years, including landmark projects such as Phoenix’s U.S. Bank Building, Chase Bank at Centerpoint in Tempe and the biodesign buildings at ASU’s Tempe campus.

“This is my last job in my career, so it’s really been a great joy for this job to be successful,” Abair says.

Key Players

Owner: City of Phoenix
Stakeholder: Arizona State University
Architect: HDR Architecture Inc.; Steven Ehrlich Architects
General Contractor: Sundt Construction Inc.
Engineer: Caruso Turley Scott Inc.
Subcontractors: Kearney Electric; Schuff Steel; Star Roofing; University Mechanical; Western States Fire Protection; Performance Contracting Inc.

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