Construction continues for University Place student housing complexes

Kyle Monroe
Construction
A worker climbs down a stack of counter-weights on a new crane being built at the
University Place construction site Monday afternoon.
By Carlee Lammers & Celeste Lantz
Only six-and-a-half months into the job, University Place apartments are looking more
like a future building than a nondescript construction site.
We are beginning to go vertical with the building, said Andy Dye, site superintendent
for Turner Construction, the company managing the University Place project. For the
most part, this job consists of concrete, deep foundations.
One of the final steps to building the frame of University Place is a cold-form metal
framing panelized system, an innovative trend in construction.
(This type of construction) has been prominent in other parts of the country, (especially)
out West. The benefits to it are that rather than doing your construction where you build
your structure then you fill in walls after the fact. That comes out all in one piece and
you have an exterior skin on the outside.
That way, once its erected and set up, your building is 100 percent dry from the
outside, he said.
Dye, who is spearheading the labor-intensive work on site, said this team is constructing
this building to be as structurally sound as possible, to make sure the apartments are
here to stay.

Over the course of the next four months, were going to fly (the) panels And theyre
going to ring around the exterior of the building. Were going to set panels on the
interior, where the corridors are, and then were going to hang floor joists between the
two structural walls, Dye said.
A joist is one of the horizontal supporting pieces that runs the length of the would-be
floor, ceiling or roof and is typically made of wood, steel or concrete.
After all of that is in place, the decking will be put in and the system will start all over
six or seven more times for the North and South Towers, respectively, until the
apartment buildings are completed.
Turner Construction, the main contractor for the site and one of the largest construction
management companies in the U.S., faced many challenges when they started the
planning for University Place more than nine months ago.
We knew this job was going to be a difficult one due to its location and the slope of the
ground from University (Avenue) down to Grant Avenue, Dye said.
Vertically speaking, not on the slope, theres between 60-70 feet from one point to the
other, and construction equipment is very difficult to work off of because they need flat
areas.
One problem the workers needed to solve before any construction could begin was to
install a support system of concrete placed in horizontal steps to prevent sliding and
provide a stable ground for the cranes and trucks.
An entirely different system is used to create the foundation for the buildings, however.
Several metal caissons watertight retaining chambers that serve as a foundation
support are drilled and placed into the ground where the structure will go. Anything
can be put on the top disks, such as poured concrete, for example, which will transfer
the pressure across the floor and down to the bedrock.
Theres around 6,000 yards of concrete spread out over 201 caissons. These caissons
essentially go down to bedrock, Dye said.
Some of them are upward of 90 feet in length, so a lot of time and effort goes into
making sure this things doesnt sink later.
Dye, a graduate of West Virginia University, is no stranger to the ins-and-outs of
constructing structures of this size.
I graduated in civil engineering in 2006 from West Virginia University. When I
graduated, I worked in Morgantown for three and a half years at Mon General Hospital.
Three years after that, I was working in downtown Pittsburgh, Dye said.

With a college degree in civil engineering, Dye said there are two paths: become a
designer or work out in the field.
I decided I wanted to work out in the construction field because I like being out
interacting with the tradesmen and everyone else, he said.
Coming back to work on this project was perfect for Dye, because he is the only person
on the staff who is familiar with the area and its potential complications. He said the
proximity to his home was an added benefit.
It keeps my commute short. Im working for a former professor, and this is a job in
Morgantown the place where I live. Its (an) ideal job for me, he said.
Dyes job consists of ensuring the quality, safety and installation of the work. He also
makes the schedule and sequencing and keeps everyone on task.
Another of Dyes roles consists of keeping in mind the logistics of the site, such as
making sure the crane pad provides ample room for the crane to move around.
I try to work three weeks ahead (of everyone else), Dye said.
Dye and the rest of the Turner Construction team are only managers or architects,
designers and engineers. The men who are doing the building are all under private
contractors.
These workers will face a new hurdle when the cold weather kicks in.
When its winter time, you have approximately nine and a half to 10 hours of daylight,
sometimes less. You have to maximize that when you have an expensive crane, Dye
said.
For construction nowadays, everything is so fast-paced. Youre building a structure in
the winter time in a lot of these jobs. We just have to monitor ps a qs a little bit closer to
make sure that were not doing anything that will affect the concrete or any other
substrate later.
The completion date is determined through researched production numbers. The site
managers calculate how much manpower is needed and how much time they have to
determine the necessary resources. This also helps to estimate the cost of the project.
Weve spent $25-30 million in raw materials, said David Martinelli, the owner of
Paradigm Development Group.
Martinelli said students should expect to see the building coming together much quicker
from here to the end of the process.
The expected opening for University Place Apartments is fall 2014, just in time for
students to move in.

For more updates and projected images of the completed building,

visit http://uplace.wvu.edu.
http://www.thedaonline.com/news/university/article_997e3490-4832-11e3-8cbc001a4bcf6878.html