Tulsa Vision Builders

Progress on schedule┬áKeith Regan talks with a Tulsa Vision Builders project manager to learn how keeping the Tulsa Vision 2025 project on schedule is key to keeping it on budget and clearing the way for future work.  Hoping to boost economic development for a generation to come, Tulsa County, Oklahoma officials convinced voters in 2003 to approve a one-penny, 13-year sales tax increase. The result is a fund for extensive infrastructure and other projects in downtown Tulsa and elsewhere, known as Tulsa Vision 2025, focusing on attracting business into the region. ┬áTo help make the downtown building projects a reality, Manhattan Construction and Flintco, Inc. formed a joint venture known as Tulsa Vision Builders. The venture teamed up to complete the new 20,000-seat Bank of Oklahoma (BOK) Center downtown, one of the first projects in the Tulsa Vision 2025 pipeline. Today, Tulsa Vision Builders is in the midst of the next project, the construction of an addition to the Tulsa Convention Center that includes a 30,000-square-foot ballroom, which will be the largest facility of its type in the state, as well as new meeting space and other amenities. The $52 million project also includes the construction of a new service tunnel connecting the convention center to the new ballroom expansion.The project has a completion target date of December 2009. In fact, events are already being booked for the new space starting in January 2010, says project manager Jason Martin, who works for Manhattan. ÔÇ£We feel very good about where we are in the project at this point,ÔÇØ he says, noting that the relatively mild Tulsa winter allowed site preparation and utility work to continue year-round. ÔÇ£Right now, the schedule is running right on track, as is the budget. Schedule certainly drives the overall budget. If you can stay on track and get things done in the proper durations that people have set for themselves, itÔÇÖs a lot easier to avoid having them ask for changes or additional funds.ÔÇØMeant to enable larger-scale events to take place at the Convention Center, which was originally built in the 1960s, the ballroom will feature a perforated architectural metal ceiling design as well as high-end finishes and materials. A key architectural feature is a glass curtain wall entrance on the north side of the ballroom expansion, with the architecture of the original Convention Center updated and echoed in the new addition. The renovation also includes approximately 7,000 square feet of additional meeting room space. Support spaces are provided with the main storage and housekeeping areas located on the lower level. Once the Convention Center expansion is completed, the city expects to be able to be more competitive with other cities of its size for attracting conventions and related events. Meeting the aggressive time frame has been one of the top priorities of the construction management team, says Martin. Working on a relatively small site has presented its own challenges, as has coordinating with a separate project on an adjacent parcel, the construction of a parking garage ramp. The two sites overlap by 40 feet, in fact. ÔÇ£The new ramp into the garage is being built literally a few feet from the edge of our construction, so that has been a coordination challenge.ÔÇØThe site where the majority of the new construction is taking place was also home to a number of utility easements, requiring extensive relocation early in the construction process. From there, work began on a tunnel that will run about 175 feet between the new ballroom expansion and the Convention Center. That work has required extensive coordination with city officials, outside contractors and others, with Martin and his on-site team working hard to keep communication lines open and to keep all impacted parties updated on schedules. The economic slowdown has helped the project attract abundant high-quality bids for all the subcontracts. ÔÇ£WeÔÇÖve gotten three bids on just about all our bid packages weÔÇÖve put on the street,ÔÇØ Martin says. ÔÇ£WeÔÇÖve had some contractors come in from out of state to bid, and that has helped keep us on budget.ÔÇØ Even out-of-state contractors have signed on to a project labor agreement that requires at least 50 percent of workers on the project to be from the Tulsa area.The project has also withstood volatility in the materials marketplace with some advanced planning, buying the steel for the structure during a routine mill run, a technique Martin carried forward from earlier projects at Manhattan Construction, where he has worked for over a decade. MartinÔÇÖs team also spends significant time and resources on work site safety, with regular safety audits on the site and weekly safety meetings involving all the trades people working on the project. ÔÇ£We want to make sure they have the tools and knowledge they need to do their job safely 100 percent of the time,ÔÇØ he adds.Completing the tunnel is part of the critical path forward to continuing construction on the site; structural steel is due to be on the site in March. ÔÇ£ThatÔÇÖs part of the supporting structure, and once we can get that backfilled weÔÇÖll be well on our way,ÔÇØ Martin says. The tunnel is a key component of the future operation of the ballroom, enabling items to be brought into the ballroom behind the scenes, enabling events to be set up and taken down in the ballroom spaceÔÇöwhich can be divided into smaller event spacesÔÇöwithout disrupting activities elsewhere in the center. ÔÇ£WeÔÇÖve got a good group of contractors and subs lined up, and weÔÇÖve got a lot of experience managing projects like this, so we feel good about where we are and about the long-range benefits of this project once we get it done.ÔÇØ ÔÇô Editorial research by Michael Fretwell┬á