Classmates

Lee Lewis Getting Straight As at Texas Tech

By Rob Patterson

Two years ago, Lubbock-based Lee Lewis Construction Inc. earned almost half its income from Texas Tech University, delivering jobs such as the $80 million renovation of Jones SBC Stadium and other sports-program projects.

Since then, with the expansion and renovation of the University Center and construction of the Animal & Food Sciences Facility and the Experimental Sciences Building, Lee Lewis has done nearly $72 million in work at the university. The three projects are being built on a construction-manager-at-risk basis and are nearing completion.

The company's ongoing relationship with the university also includes the $25.5 million Health Sciences Center Clinical Tower scheduled to break ground by December.

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Lab Partners

The most complex and rigorous of the three projects is the $28.5 million, 128,000-sq.-ft. Experimental Sciences Building.

The J-shaped building was conceived as a "multidisciplinary facility that would be a home for cross-pollination of ideas," said project architect Jorge de la Cal of Anshen + Allen of Los Angeles. "We designed it in a generic manner so that over time different users would be able to occupy it without having to redesign the spaces and reconfigure them."

The cutting-edge facility combines the design tradition of the Texas Tech master plan with modernity. "It had to be designed in a historical context because the building is sited in the historical core of the campus," de la Cal said. Designers worked with the university's exterior palette of brick, stone and clay-tile roofs to make the composite steel and masonry structure "look as modern as possible," he added.

The façade is cast stone, Leuters limestone and brick with copper wall panels and soffits on the third floor.

The building features a number of vibration-sensitive pieces of equipment such as electron microscopes, which means the structure needed greater solidity. In the basement are large spot footings and rebar laps from the footings to the top fourth floor throughout.

The vibration mitigation efforts as well as isolating the biosafety Level 3 containment facilities in the basement also required thicker slabs in various sections of the building. The slabs were enlarged from 5.5 in. to 9.25 in. with 31 in. steel I-beams.

In order to exhaust a number of the laboratories and hermetically contain the biosafety labs, 30 percent of the building's budget was dedicated to mechanical, electrical and plumbing. The air-handling systems in the fourth-floor mechanical penthouse boast extensive vibration isolation treatments also contained in that cost.

"Every piece of equipment in the building that has a motor more than a horsepower of 2 is isolated or set on an inertia base," said Chad Henthorn, project manager for Lee Lewis. All 14 air handlers are isolated externally and internally.

"Each air handler sits on vibration isolators, and then inside the motor itself is set on another set of vibration isolators," Henthorn added.

All the exhaust fans sit on inertia bases, and even a 5-horsepower pump sits on a neoprene pad.

With six mechanical shafts throughout the building, the construction required detailed plans and organizational meetings with subcontractors for the installation of the mechanical, electrical and plumbing to proceed in a coordinated fashion. "From an MEP standpoint, there's a ton of work and it's a complicated system with each laboratory having its own discrete, digitally controlled airflow system," Henthorn said.

A Geographic Information Systems wing will perform large-scale computer imaging. It features raised flooring with conduits underneath for flexibility and computer and electrical connections.

About 30,000 sq. ft. of the structure remains shell space for a future virtual-reality laboratory.

In the $14.6 million Animal & Food Sciences Facility, uniting a new structure with an older one was a primary task. The building is on track for completion next month.

The 55,000-sq.-ft. structural-steel-and-cast-masonry building combines two departments that had outgrown previous spaces and brings together functions that were scattered at seven locations around the campus.

The new construction is an L-shaped structure that adjoins an existing stucco-faced building to form a U with an interior courtyard. The older facility includes a show arena, classrooms, kill rooms and a test kitchen.

The new building includes a classroom wing with didactic and high-tech distance education classrooms and a retail store for products produced in the enlarged facility. "It's a little remote from the core campus," said Texas Tech project manager Michael Knight. "So we didn't have to go to the true Renaissance architecture. But it has the Spanish Renaissance flavor."

The central entryway of the wing also features Gothic elements, and the roof is the standard red Ludowici clay tile used on campus.

The laboratory wing has a simpler brick exterior and features research and teaching labs, animal-holding facilities and surgery and necropsy rooms.

A modern test kitchen allows for blind tests and food sampling under a variety of lighting conditions. An overhead rail meat conveyor carries animal carcasses from the old building and through the new wing.

"One of the reasons for the configuration of the building was to create a new image for the department," said Mary Crites, principal architect for Parkhill Smith & Cooper of Lubbock. "It's going to be a fantastic addition to the campus."

History Lesson

After work was completed in September 2003 on an 80,000-sq.-ft. expansion to the University Center, part of a $28.8 million project, Lee Lewis began renovation of the existing center that will wrap up next month. The student body voted to increase fees to fund the work, and a student committee worked closely with the facility planning and design team.

The expansion adds a modern slant to the university's Spanish Renaissance architecture with the addition of a Barnes & Noble bookstore and Starbucks coffee shop. The space also includes a theater, computer store and lab, student government offices, a game room and public gathering spaces. Within the stone-clad, structural-steel edifice is a node that includes a two-story lounge and pavilion with floor-to-ceiling windows.

Architects for the project used "a series of significant qualities of Spanish Renaissance architecture that we felt was important to the building," said Brad Lukanic, project manager for New York City-based Holzman Moss Architecture. "One was a quality of shade and shadow on the façade."

Of major concern was integrating the new construction with the existing center, which was built in the 1950s and has undergone five additions, as well as creating harmony with the nearby Moorish-style library. "Fortunately the old building was in fairly poor shape, so the renovation was almost a gut down to the existing structure," Lukanic said.

The process revealed some hidden treasures. "Someone had the forethought to preserve the original south porch brick arches," said Brent Weckar, this job's project manager for Lee Lewis. "They had basically enclosed them in the new brick walls. We were able to expose them and use them as features in the new building."

To match the mixed-era structures with the expansion, the differing floor and ceiling heights required extensive ramping, reworking of the various old roof lines and extensive renovation and replacement of the existing air-handling system.

Todd Hardin, Texas Tech project manager on this job, said the work on the older structure includes replacing all the clay-tile roofs, extensive stone and brick repair and a clean-up of the exterior.

"We're also replacing all the glazing and window-wall systems with standard Texas Tech ivory glass," Hardin said. He added that the new glass color matches the new glazing and meets state energy conservation standards.

The project came in at $2 million under the architect's final estimate.

Key players:
Owner: Texas Tech University, Lubbock
Contractor: Lee Lewis Construction Inc., Lubbock
Architect (University Center Expansion): Holzman Moss Architecture, New York City
Architect (Animal & Food Sciences Facility): Parkhill Smith & Cooper, Lubbock
Architect (Experimental Sciences Building): Anshen + Allen, Los Angeles
Structural Engineer (University Center Expansion and Animal & Food Sciences Facility): Parkhill Smith & Cooper, Lubbock
Structural Engineer (Experimental Sciences Building): John A. Martin & Associates, Los Angeles