Best of 2005 Awards

SUNY Cortland Glass Tower Hall

Award of Merit: Higher Education

Construction on the 55,600-sq.-ft. Glass Tower Hall at SUNY Cortland only broke ground in June 2004, but the 197-bed hall was finished for the current fall semester in August.

It wasn't just the construction that was on a fast-track schedule. The entire project, from the design phase, took 22 months. And it was the first new dormitory on the campus in 32 years.

The new Glass Tower Hall takes its name from its distinctive architectural feature - four floors of glass-encased student lounges that face Neubig Road and Corey Union. Erected between two existing, student-occupied dormitories, the building is also the only air-conditioned residence hall on campus.

The project, financed in part and overseen by the Dormitory Authority of the State of New York, cost $12.6 million - including $10.8 million in construction costs - and came in about $416,000 under budget.

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"It came in with less than 1 percent of change orders," one Best of 2005 jury member said. "That's good value."

Meeting the tight schedule was one of the biggest accomplishments. The team opted to shift from a traditional design-bid-build contract to the construction manager-at-risk delivery method, in which the contractor offers a guaranteed maximum price for construction of the project and assumes the risk for costs exceeding that price.

Cited as a "tough job" by the jury, the project team staged three phases to allow demolition, sitework, foundations, and structural steel erection to get under way even as the architects were finishing designs for the building's interior.

The phasing also allowed completion of those early site and structural tasks, as well as precast concrete plank and roofing, prior to last December, which allowed the team to work on the interiors during the winter.

The site itself was particularly tight, requiring the project team to create a roadway between the two existing dormitories. The university supplied offsite storage and materials lay-down areas on campus, as well as a shuttle service from a designated contractor parking area to the jobsite.

The team encountered surprises during site excavation, having to relocate or remove features such as underground utilities, asbestos-covered pipe, and foundation underpinning for prior structures. In later phases, the project team had to manage through last year's steel price run-up and a shortage of roof insulation that required early purchases and offsite storage.

The team also had to account for an elevator workforce strike, which required the redesign of drywall and finishes so that work could take place before the elevators were installed, as well as the bankruptcy of the glazing subcontractor during the window installation phase, which required the hiring of a replacement installer and renegotiation with suppliers.

Several design details also make the building more functional for student use and more energy efficient. For instance, the hall's student suites use a valence heating and cooling system, which features hot- and cold-water fin tubes that hang from the exposed concrete plank ceiling. The system relies on the thermal principle of hot air rising and cold air sinking to create air movement past coils to heat or cool room air - a design that reduced ductwork, increased the amount of available floor area, and reduced the need for periodic maintenance of fans or filters.

SUNY is seeking Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design "certified" status from the U.S. Green Building Council for the new dormitory, which would make it the first LEED structure in the university system.

Key Players

Owner: State University of New York

Developer: Dormitory Authority of the State of New York

Construction Manager: LPCiminelli

Architect: Ashley McGraw Architects

Associate Architect: Burt, Hill

Structural Engineer: Klepper, Hahn & Hyatt

Mechanical-Electrical Engineer: Ram-Tech Engineers

Steel Contractor: Raulli & Sons