We Did It Again – Timberview Intermediate/Middle School and Multipurpose Facility
Fort Worth, Texas: – They said it couldn’t be done. There was even an unflattering news story in March done by Channel 8 saying parents were concerned because they didn’t think the school would be completed for the new school year. Keller ISD passed a bond measure in November, 2009 to pay for the construction of a new hybrid Intermediate/Middle School and Multipurpose / Early Learning Center, two separate new buildings on a new campus in west Keller on old Denton Road. By the time land was purchased, plans drawn, and the building permit obtained for the Intermediate/Middle School, it was September 2009. Was it possible to build two new buildings totaling 270,000 square feet and a campus with infrastructure in twelve months? Both of the buildings are “thinking outside the box” type buildings. Combining a school for both intermediate and middle school students, building into the school many “Learning for the 21st Century” untried design and construction systems, registering the building for LEED Silver certification (a more complex way to design and to build); building a school whose two wings feature no right (90 degree) angles; and you have a technically challenging project. Throw in the second-worst winter on record, with over 60 weather days due to rain, sleet, freezing weather, snow, and mud, and, as Hudson Huff, Director of Construction Services for Keller ISD said, “it’s an absolute miracle Steele & Freeman finished on time”.
Scott DePauw, Steele & Freeman’s Project Manager, said, “We would never have been able to complete this project on time without having a true collaboration between Keller ISD’s construction department and Hahnfeld Hoffer Stanford’s architectural services. Decisions had to be made hourly to keep the project on track. There was so much that was being designed in the field due to never having been done before. Some of the systems, for instance, the rotating walls, we started with an idea, and kept pushing the manufacturer to think outside the envelope to manufacture something they’d never envisioned. All this was done in a time crunch. We were all doing research non-stop on all these different systems. I was glad to have a background in design-build, where the contractor leads the team. We had to make decisions on the spot almost daily. Lamarr MacDonald (Construction Administrator for Hahnfeld Hoffer Stanford) spent a lot of time in the field. And sometimes we had to come up with an answer and let the architect know the issue and the resolution because there just wasn’t time. Malcolm Mulrony and Hudson Huff with Keller ISD’s construction department spent a lot of time in the field as well.”
In speaking about the team, Malcolm Mulrony, Assistant Director of Construction Services for Keller ISD said, “Absolutely brilliant teamwork. David Stanford (project designer for Hahnfeld Hoffer Stanford) is a genius. Scott DePauw pulled off something we weren’t sure was do-able”.
The project is pursuing LEED Silver Certification. Timberview is registered with the Green Building Certification Institute (a subsidiary of the US Green Building Council). “We’re about halfway between Gold and Silver, so we’re sure to obtain Silver” according to Eric Claycamp, LEED Team Project Manager for the Timberview Project.
The entire project, start to finish, was built in less than a year. The square footage between the Intermediate/Middle School, and the Multipurpose Facility, which houses a pre-school, a teacher training facility, and a distribution warehouse, is 270,000 SF. The Multipurpose Facility was built even faster than the Intermediate/Middle School. The project was built using Construction Manager at Risk contract delivery method, and the project cost was $44,035,000. The project came in under budget. “We looked throughout the project for ways to save our client money”, said Scott DePauw.
