Articles
3 February 2012

State Office Building Awarded

by PR or News Wire

03 February 2012—

The new Multi Agency State Government Office Building was named as the Division of Facilities Construction and Management’s top Design-Build project of the year.  Finished well ahead of schedule and right on budget, the building now stands majestically adjacent to the West I-215 Belt Route at about 1900 South with construction finishing this week.
 
State personnel actually began moving into the facility in November, as soon as floors were ready to receive them.  All personnel will not be in place until March.  But the facility will be ready for them as soon as they are ready to move in.
 
The State of Utah set out to provide two very different state agencies with working stations individually designed to meet each agency’s specific needs.  “Demands were many,” says Sean Onyon, VCBO Architecture principal and lead designer on the project. “We had no choice but to fix the final budget from the beginning.” By using the Design-Build procurement method, Jacobsen Construction, working with VCBO architects, finished the project right at the $46.2 million lump sum contract.
 
That figure includes the additional $4.28 million added to the budget during construction to meet additional state needs. The schedule was adjusted at the same time, to have everything completed by the February 26 deadline. Substantial completion will occur the end of the first week of February – weeks ahead of the agreed-upon schedule.  
 
“It’s a demonstration of how Design-Build procurement can maximize state expenditures” says Paul Lawrence, Jacobsen project manager and leader of the Design-Build Team. He said the 252,000 square foot facility spreads two separate agencies across four floors, and provides ample space to meet both the Department of Human Resources and the Department of Environmental Quality roles.  “And it brings all the amenities of a Class A office facility to the State at a conservative public budget.”
 
The brace-framed steel structure rises 77 feet above the 700-stall parking lot.  Because of the nature of the soils on which it was built, the building needed geo piers to carry the load.  The curtain wall, brick veneer and ribbon window design from VCBO Architects provides plenty of light and a feeling of solidarity to the structure.  
 
Onyon says the project was: “A testament of working together. Anytime design, construction and ownership put their heads that closely together value can be optimized.” In this case, the design-build format enabled some very creative solutions for the dual agency ownership. “We divided the building into two wings to separate the roles of the two agencies. One agency deals more with human problems, the other with documents and finances.”
 
The two agencies share a common vertical core, housing elevators, restrooms, and stairs.  Shared spaces and the “street” configuration provide an increased buffer from the traffic noise from the adjacent freeway.  By collecting the common areas on the rear of the building, “we were able to bring people together for food service and other common interests.” According to Onyon, the common spaces provide a solid barrier to the sound and other freeway distractions.  “I am very pleased how well it all worked out.”                                                                                                                                            
 
By separating the two agencies the building now solves another problem – solar control.  By placing the building in the middle of the North/South rectangular site, each wing is now oriented in an East/West direction to maximize sun exposure.  The site orientation also allows each agency to have adjacent parking to their individual building wings.

“Perhaps the feature I like most,” says Onyon, “open office areas are placed on the exterior so borrowed light from the clearstory windows reaches into the interior. “

“I really like the Design/Build format,” says Lawrence.  “We had our heads together throughout the project solving any problems we encountered, and both designer and constructor worked them out together with the State’s needs foremost in our thinking.”


Built by Crowell