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IU Service Building Reflects Design-Build Approach:
Range Road facility already in use as construction work winds up
by Steve Hinnefeld
(812) 331-4374
shinnefeld@heraldt.com
Bloomington Herald Times
April 12, 2007
Indiana University’s new Service Building went up fast, but not fast enough. IU offices and maintenance shops started moving into it in February, before the building was quite done.
“We moved, maybe, before we should have,” said Bob Meadows, the university architect, whose office is one of those in the new facility.
But now the building is almost finished. Fresh drywall is being painted, final sections of carpet are being laid, and the outside will soon be landscaped. The chief contractor, F.A. Wilhelm Construction Co. of Indianapolis, plans to be finished at the site in two weeks, Meadows said.
The Service Building, on Range Road northeast of campus, marks a change of direction for the university. For one thing, it was the first IU facility constructed using the design-build approach, in which the design architect works for the contractor, not for the university.
State law changed in 2005 to allow design-build construction of public buildings. Meadows said it saves time and money.
For another, it’s part of a shift in which IU officials intend to put up certain types of buildings away from the center of campus and use less expensive designs and materials.
Also on Range Road are an auxiliary library facility for storing books, the motor pool and a Halls of Residence warehouse. Nearby, at the former University School, IU plans to start work this summer on a Cyber Infrastructure Facility for information-technology offices and a data center to house and protect computers and equipment.
Meadows said the buildings taking shape east of the Ind. 45-46 Bypass may not use traditional college architecture, but the area will retain the distinctive IU feel through its use of open space, trees and landscaping.
The $7 million cost of the 79,500-square-foot Service Building is covered by a $45 million state appropriation two years ago that also will pay for renovating IU’s Central Heating Plant.
The new Service Building replaces a cinder-block structure on Walnut Grove Avenue, just north of the Psychology Building. It also incorporates offices that had been scattered at four other campus locations. Overall, there’s a 22 percent increase in space from what the offices and shops previously had, said Patrick Murray, IU director of facilities programming and utilization.
Meadows said the old building will be torn down next week, and IU is taking bids for Life Science II, a $51.7 million building for labs and offices for neuroscience, biogeochemistry and other multidisciplinary sciences.
“I think right now we’re talking about mid-May to start construction,” Meadows said.
The new Service Building is a split-level affair with open-design offices for professional, technical and clerical staff at the front and shops for painters, carpenters and other crafts in the back. The inner and outer walls are made of squares of pre-cast concrete. Spread around the exterior are sections of ribbed, translucent polycarbonate that let light shine through.
Just inside the front entrance, a conference-room door is framed by an arch of carved limestone. It was salvaged from the front door of the former Kappa Sigma fraternity house, which IU tore down, to considerable controversy, a year ago.
“I said, ‘We have to keep that,’” Meadows said.
*This article was copied with permission from http://www.heraldtimesonline.com/stories/2007/04/12/news.nw-352327.sto?1176380388.