You’ve been MSU’s architect for 23 years. What projects stand out in your mind? One of the larger ones was Strong Hall in 1994. The Meyer Library addition and adding the carillon tower was an exciting project. When I first got here, Hammons House had been finished, but Hutchens House was under construction and the cafeteria between them was in the works. Shortly after I arrived, the president at the time decided we needed an addition to the west bleachers. We built them in 1991 and that was a very fast project.
We’ve renovated the student union completely since I’ve been here and done a lot of residence hall work. One summer, we spent $11 million in 66 days.
The carillon tower probably has the strongest interest for me because my wife was a music major here at the university. We actually took a bit of a vacation and went over to the Netherlands where the bells were cast. We were part of the casting and saw the wax molds they used to build the bells. For good luck, my money was actually tossed into the bronze. So, I have coins that were melted into the carillon bells.
MSU is poised to be one of the largest players in Springfield’s commercial construction boom, with 131 fully funded projects on tap starting in September. What’s your main focus right now? Our primary focus is the larger projects. I hate to slight the smaller ones, but the attention of the administration, the community and everybody kind of gravitates toward the larger ones.
Right now, we are working very hard to get some projects out for bid in April. The Welcome Center and Pummill Hall both go out in the next couple weeks. We are looking at some exterior elements of repair to Plaster Sports Complex. We’re doing a handful of roof replacements and some computer lab renovations over at Glass Hall. The student union was renovated in 1999 or 2000, but it’s kind of a tired building because it has been heavily used by students, faculty, staff and the community. We’ve got kind of an exciting scheme that’s going to make a difference in the look of the union. We want to give it a modern update. We are even looking to try and help the visually impaired by putting in some special surfaces and numbers in the carpeting.
The planned Welcome Center will be MSU’s newest recruitment tool. What’s the timeline going forward? It goes out for bid in about a week and bids May 1. We will have to go to the May executive committee meeting for approval on that project, but once that is approved we can award the contract and construction will probably start the first part of June. Unfortunately, when it comes to building most of our projects, the only open space we have are parking lots. The parking lot at the Welcome Center site – on the corner of Bear Boulevard and National Avenue – will be out of service come June 1 and it’s probably not going to go over real well with the people who park there. The contractor will set the schedule on this building. We want quality in this building, because it is an important building, so we don’t want to rush them.
Will it have any defining features? When we started talking about it, the president asked for signature architecture. It’s important to him that it’s a focal point for campus. It will be the first stop for visitors coming to our campus. One of the criteria is really nice restrooms. If you have been on the road for hours and get to a place, you need to use the restroom. The building will be very open, with an auditorium that can hold large events. There will be lots of glass and lots of transparency. We are trying to brand it uniquely with a large bear head inside that’s going to be very different and Missouri State etched into the concrete floor. The construction cost is just shy of $4 million; the estimated project budget is about $4.8 million. I’d say it will probably be ready the fall of 2015. It’s about 12,000 square feet, so not that large.
The white upper portion of the building is a type of cement board that is for exterior use. The material is solid and has the same color throughout the thickness. This allows it to be cut in a pattern and maintain the same color. The president asked for lots of transparency in this structure. This obviously means glass. The northern end of the building is much more transparent than the south end. The visitors enter the north end, or transparent end. As you move through the building toward the south, the building becomes more solid or opaque. The “functional” areas of the building are on the south end like mechanical rooms, telecom rooms, etc. The upper white panels you see also have more perforations on the north end letting more light in. On the west side, these panels also act as a sun screen to reduce the amount of west sun entering the building. The plane of this material actually folds out to provide some cover to the entrance and help mark the entrance. The hole pattern in the panels actually comes from the old black and white bond school books for note taking, or essay books. It is a reference back to our routes as a teacher’s college.
There is a very strong desire to have this building look good both during the day as well as night. With its transparency, the auditorium inside is set into a cube that will be painted maroon. This maroon cube should be very visible at night and help brand the building to MSU. The large bear head inside the building also serves to brand the building while providing a rail at the edge of the stairs. The bear head will be made up of vertical slats and not just be a big bear head.
Why does MSU have so many projects on the slate at once? It’s a lot of different factors from a lot of different sources. Most of these projects are being funded through different means and that money comes in at different times. The Welcome Center is more privately funded, other academic buildings like Pummill Hall are driven through need. The College of Health and Human Services needed space. The hospitality and restaurant administration needed to be moved out of the Professional Building to allow the Health and Human Services College more room. So Pummill Hall, which had been vacated due to other renovations, became the target for HRA. When we got to looking at it, little pockets of money became available to put toward a second floor general classroom upgrade. At that point we were renovating three of the four floors, and it was decided to add the remaining floor and do the whole thing. It’s just putting pieces together. It’s really the perfect storm right now. We are working on $100 million in projects and that’s a lot for the university from a construction standpoint. The university has never had this many projects at one time. When we were doing the arena, it was $65 million and even that was spread out over years. This is the heaviest year we have had since I’ve been here.[[In-content Ad]]
