“WE STARTED PAGANINI COMMUNICATIONS because of a request from one of our large electrical service accounts that wanted the same level of quali id service for their telecommunications needs as they w experi- encing with our electrical side,” said Michael K. Paganini, owner/president, Paganini Communications Inc an Francisco. rhe company was founded in 1998 by the team at Paganini Electric Corp,, an electrical contractor in the San Francisco Bay Area since 1948, We got “80s when low-voltage work started becom ing more of a specialty type of install. It was ‘anew line of business that fit with our eo pany Paganini Communications. Andrini has run the company since 2008 as a separate entity although it shares office space with Pagapini Electric Phe communications companyhasan office staff of five and afield staff that varies depending on need but has included as many said Larry Andrini, vice president of 8 24 eld technicians, ‘Many times we're asked t services as opposed to electrical services and wide eabling view versa" Andtini ssi, That was the case with a project for San Franeiseo State University (SFSU) for whieh Paganini installed the cable infrastructure for the voice data, Internet, Ethernes and wireless Tewvas completed in 2007 and given ai Award of Merit by California Construction maga zine, an honor shared by the owner/project ‘manauger, The Westfield Group and by Hunts man Architectural Group: engineers Flack & Kurtz; Swinerton Builders asa subcontractor «cen s the electrical subeontraetor to Swinerton to Westfield: Cupertino Bleetrie Inc Builders; and Paganini Communications ‘Ic was a high-profile project that we are happy to have worked on,” Andrini sad, “SESU ‘town San Francisco largely inthe farm of our ssalways had a presence in down: College of Extended Learning?” said Zelind: Zingaro, director of campus space administra tion. "Ourlease wascomingup, and we wanted 1bexpand our presence downtown. Adec ‘was made to move our College of Business Master's Degree Programs downtown, Wit he requirements for that and forthe College of Extended Learning, we sought new space in downtown San Francisco 125134-square-foot build ing butin the Westfield San Francisco Centre the largest urban shopping center west ofthe Mississippi River, ‘main street, Market Steet, once housed ‘The Emporium, a department store dubbed “The GGrandst Mercantile Buildingin she World” at the beginning ofthe 20h centory: While the building was gutted it was a new construc theloeation ofthe ne ‘campus was notin an ordinary offi The building on the city’s retained: the 1896 exterior Beaux-Arts facade and a 102-fo slome (raised during construction) that now wide, 1900s steel-andiglass tops.a200-foot-long atrium, The San Francisco Centre offered usdirect aceessto BART [Bay Area Rapid Transit], Muni [san Fra nical Transit Agency] and Market Street public transi, excellent parking options, and unfinished spsce with sufficient column width that allowed us to build ap propriately sized classrooms while meeting [.Jall building code requirements? Zingaro Peal rie]5 said. “The historic aspects ofthe building, combined with the op- portunity to build out space as new construction was very at- ‘active and resulted in a truly remarkablenew downtown cam- pus for San Francisco State” ‘Two of the university's nine colleges are at the campus. To- ether the programs ofthe College of Extended Learning, the SFS graduate business programs, and other SFSU departments and pro- grams serve up to 1,500 students perday atthe location, which in- chudes office and administrative space, 32 classrooms, five study ooms and nine computer labs. Each ofthe computer labs has 15-21 computers. While some of the SFSU programs at the down- town campus include computer classes in which students use the Internet, Other programs, such as Digital Video Intensive, make use of the infrastructure for file serving, so students and instruc- tors can share files with greater cease. The university also recently implemented Apple Final Cut server, a collaboration server for video editing that allows video files tobe accessed remotely. ‘Tomeetall these computing needs, an extensive telecom- ‘munications network was installed forthe campus, “In this day and age, telecommunications is very impor- tant” Zingaro sai. ‘An odd job “Ttwas an atypical install because ofthe requirements. There was lot of fiber and copper tothe desktop.” Andrini said ‘The company used approximately nine International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) sound and com- munications technicians trained in voice/data/video to do the build-out and used Uniprise Solutions by CommScope for the cable infrastructure of the voice, data, Internet, Eth cemet and wireless, Since the SFSU eampus is situated on the fifth and sixth floors ofthe center, Paganini ran fiber and copper-te cabling from the IDF closets on those floors to each of the individual ‘computer labs. A remote satellite ‘closet was built within each lab “where the networking equipment was mounted. From those closets, Paganini ran fiber and copper cf bles tothe various workstations, “That design was done specifi- cally for the SFSU installation s0 that each lab could have its own stand-alone network and was d signed with the future in min ‘Andrini sai, Both multimode and single- ‘mode optical fiber from the SFSU main telecommunications room to the building's telecommunica- installed. Thatallows SFSU to con- rect to faster telecommunications services than the DSI. or Tl servic- ces provided by using the building's copper twisted-pair backbone tele- phone cabling. Future-proofed ‘The fiber cable has been pulled but {snot connected tothe SFSU system. ‘Therefore, che university willbe able toupgrade to itlater. “Asthe Internet speeds up and as ‘we are able to connect to the fiber network underneath the city of San Francisco the metro area network, and California, one that ul- ‘imately goes overseas, it willbe significantly faster than what anybody knowsas the Internet today so that sets us up for that” said Craig Abaya, director, digital media and entertainment pro- grams, SFSU, College of Extended Learning “Things have been putin place that will allow ustobe able to collaborate, watch video and do many other things much faster than isthe norm atthe moment? Andrini sid. ‘The installation of Category 6 UTP cabs outlets and optical fiber eable to some outlets, even though these capabilites might not have been needed on day one, pre- pares the university to upgrade the speed oftheir local area networks. By going to the effort and expense of installing de- fined eabling pathways (cable tray and conduit, the university ives itself the flexibility and opportunity to add or change cables as technology evolves, while causing less disruption to their facility than might otherwise be the cas" said Michael ‘T Burke, RCDD, associate, Plack & Kurtz San Francisco, oll telecom FeRO9 SECURITY*LIFE SAFETY SYSTEMS °10 ‘CommScope Uniprise angled panels Paganini Communications coordinated with CEL and certon regarding the routing of both the cable tray, which was done by CEI, and the cable. “Design ofthe floor and facility tse was atypical with the atrium in center of the building” Andrini said, “Prom the fifth and sixth floors you could walk tothe center ofthe building and look down into the mall, That meant that it was not atypical installation because the cable tay had to take a different route thanone normally taken, due tothe architecture Ithad to goall ‘the way around che perimeter ofthe atrium, as opposed to being able ocutthrough the center ofthe building. In addition, since the other trades had installed their equipment prior, the eable ‘ray for the telecommunications equipment had tobe routed in the ceiling around the equipment built by all the other trades” ‘Then there was the installation of the cable itself, “The cable infrastructure was a work in progress that in- volved more coordination with Cupertino and Swinerton due to the mandated routing ofthe cable tray around the perim- ter ofthe atrium and the many variable obstacles, such as wall penetrations, drop and raising of cable tray elevations, tray-t0- conduit sleeve transitions and fre sealing" Andrini said ‘Specifically, Paganini ran high pair-count eopper cables for the voice syscems, RG-I coax cable CATY, and fiber optic eable ‘onthe fifth floor From there it dropped down through other riser closets stacked above each other tothe closet in the base ‘ment. The cables then exited the riser closet and ran dawn the corridor inthe basement to the main point of entry (MPOE). Four-inch conduit runs thar were fastened tothe ceiling of the basement offered access to the MPOE. Since the ceiling in the basement was 25 fet high and the run was several hundred feet long, pl eans were installed per code toallow for the installation of the fiber and copper cables. Paganini sed 2 man lift so that its technicians could access the pallcans Paganinialso tested the copper an fiber eablinginfra structure with Category 6 testing procedures and used a Fluke DTX1800 cable analyzer SECURITYSLIFE SAFETY ‘While the SFSU campus did not have to be completed for the grand opening ofthe building in September 2006—it was ‘completed in January 2007—when it opened, i became part of the overall $460 million project, a joint venture between ‘The Westfield Group and Forest City Development. The united 15 million-square-foot, nine-level center is home to ‘Bloomingdale's and Nordstrom and to 170 specialty stores and boutiques, restaurants an international gourmet marketplace, anine-sereen state-of-the-art movie theater, 245,000 square {feet of office space and SFSU, Busy bees, Itwasa busy construction situation, More than one hundred stores and retail establishments were under construction, simultaneously “We were building out two floors in he buildingat the same time as all the retail store, the lobby, the theaters, were being built. ll the different contractors and trades on-site were ut lizing the same facilities. Deliveries were to one loading dock located in an alle in the middle ofthe city. Arrangements for delivery of materials had tobe arranged two days in advance. ‘We shared the few freight elevators to transport ourselves and ‘our materials?” Andrini sai, “twas a complicated project Glenn Ashton, Swinerton's project executive, said, “There were miles of data cables to every classroom and to classroom tables to accommodate the needs ofthe students, It was alot more intense than atypical tenant-improvement project. In the end, everything worked. Paganini got it done, and when they needed to, they stepped up and worked overtime to make the schedule” " CASEY authr of Ke Inventors and" Woman vent! Two Cartref Dicoveris tht loveng A Handbook fr Young have Changed Ox ican be reached at chooks accom or PROJECT PARTNERS THE WESTFIELD GROUP HUNTSMAN Owner constuction ARCHITECTURAL, ‘management/general GROUP contractor Architect SAN FRANCISCO STATE CUPERTINO ELECTRIC, UNIVERSITY Inc. "Tenant Electrical contractor SWINERTON BUILDERS PAGANINI (General contractor COMMUNICATIONS, INC. FLACK & KURTZ Communications Engineer