The Challenge
The Draper Approach
Results Realized
The Challenge
Students majoring in Biomedical Engineering (BME) at the Georgia Institute of Technology received a valuable gift in July 2003-their own space. Their space came in the form of the new 90,000 square-foot U.A. Whitaker Biomedical Engineering Building . These BME students, who at one time had to settle for early morning or late afternoon classes scattered across the campus now reside in the third of a four-building complex devoted to instruction and research in bio-technical, environmental and molecular disciplines. The $21 million U.A. Whitaker Building houses the Wallace H. Coulter School of Biomedical Engineering, now the permanent home for the joint Georgia Tech-Emory University School , and stands alongside the Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience and the Ford Environmental Science and Technology Building .
The state-of-the-art facility includes three large-scale wet and/or dry research laboratories, computer clusters, five student meeting rooms, three lecture-style classrooms and a distance learning classroom for teaching classes simultaneously at Georgia Tech and Emory University .
Funded primarily by a donation made to the Georgia Tech Foundation, the facility's construction required great technical oversight and was accompanied by a tight turnaround schedule.
Early on, Draper & Associates was asked by the Georgia Tech Facilities, Inc., the non-profit entity set up by the Georgia Institute of Technology and the Georgia Tech Foundation to construct privately funded capital projects on campus, to act as the Owner's Representative for this project.
The Draper Approach
Operating in this role, Draper & Associates:
- Assisted with the execution of the development management services arrangement between the university entities.
- Assisted with the lease of land from the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia and the rental of the facility to the Board of Regents during the repayment period.
- Reviewed and recommended approval of design base lines and their relationship to their associated programming analyses
- Reviewed Payment and performance bond and insurance certificates for contractual compliance
- Reviewed and assessed contractor's Overall Project Schedule
- Reviewed and recommended approval of component change orders
- Reviewed and recommended approval of guaranteed maximum price change orders
- Reviewed trade contractors and suppliers bids
- Reviewed and assessed the status of the project schedule
- Reviewed and recommended approval of pay applications based on contractual compliance
- Assessed budget status and when necessary recommended measures to protect against shortfalls
- Assessed the satisfaction of contractual requirements for substantial completion
- Assessed the satisfaction of contractual requirements for final completion
Results Realized
The U.A. Whitaker building's doors opened ahead of schedule in July 2003 and under previously estimated overall construction costs.
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