Controlled Implosions & Campus Construction at Vanderbilt University
From the controlled implosions of two existing towers to groundbreaking sustainability efforts, the design and construction of Vanderbilt’s newest residential colleges has it all. Join Brooks Rutledge and the project team as they reflect on highlights of this one-of-a-kind campus transformation.
HOST
Brooks Rutledge
Vice President, Layton ConstructionView Bio
GUEST
Sean Farrell
Construction Manager, Layton ConstructionView Bio
GUEST
Josh Stewart
Senior Superintendent, Layton ConstructionView Bio
GUEST
Bob Grummon
Team Leader of Capital Projects, Vanderbilt UniversityView Bio
GUEST
Meaghan Edwards
Architect & Project Manager, Hastings ArchitectureView Bio
Narrator:
Welcome to Building Conversations, a construction podcast powered by the STO Building Group. On today’s episode, Brooks Rutledge, vice president at Layton Construction, sits down with the project team who helped execute one of the most talked about projects in Nashville—the controlled implosions and transformation of Vanderbilt University’s Residential Colleges.
Brooks Rutledge:
Hello, and welcome to Building Conversations. I am Brooks Rutledge. I’m Vice President with Layton Construction here in Nashville, Tennessee in one of my favorite places. My alma mater, Vanderbilt University. And we’re sitting with some close friends today. And why shouldn’t we be? We’ve been together for the better part of six years now. And each of these folks is a member of the design and construction team here at Vanderbilt and responsible for the execution of one of the most unique projects. One of the most talked about projects, I would say in Nashville history. And that is the residential colleges at Vanderbilt University. Kind of a full circle moment for us today. We’re sitting in the Black Box Theater at Rothschild College, the second college completed by Layton Construction. Students are living here, although not yet. They’ll be back here in just another week or so. But super excited to be here. And before we get into the details though of what was spectacular, what is spectacular about these projects, I just want to take a minute and let each of our guests, our team members here introduce themselves. So, Sean, why don’t we start with you?
Sean Farrell:
Sure. Thank you, Brooks. My name is Sean Farrell. I’m a construction manager. I’ve overseen the project from day one and been with Layton eight years now. So this is definitely a career topping project for me.
Brooks Rutledge:
Mr. Grummon—
Bob Grummon:
I’m Bob Grummon. I am team leader for Capital Projects at Vanderbilt University. I’ve played the role of project manager for this stream of projects. I’ve been here for 13 years, and I’ve been working on residential colleges the entire time.
Meaghan Edwards:
My name is Meaghan Edwards. I’m an architect with Hastings Architecture Firm. Thirteen of the nineteen years have been with Hastings, I’ve been practicing in Nashville. Started with Zeppos Residential College and am now managing the construction of residential college C.
Josh Stewart:
I’m Josh Stewart, senior superintendent with Layton. Actually, my entire time with Layton, say about three months, I’ve been here on residential colleges. I came here in December of 2019 and looking to finish it out next year.
Brooks Rutledge:
And as I said, each of these team members just instrumental in the execution of these colleges. Meaghan, you mentioned Zeppos, obviously that’s the first college named for former chancellor, Nick Zeppos. I kind of want to start with, with you, Bob, and, and just kind of you lay the context for today’s conversation, lay the groundwork, talk a little bit about Chancellor Zeppos’ vision for the residential colleges and the West End neighborhood beautification.
Bob Grummon:
Okay. So the university made a decision in mid-two thousands to start housing all of our students. We’re full residential university, so our students live on campus all four years. We wanted all of our students to experience a residential college, which gives them an opportunity to kind of live and learn 24 7 a professor lives in every one of the buildings and has kind of mentorship over three hundred plus students. We started over on Peabody campus, which where all the freshmen live. That was a really successful experience for us. And so we started evolving and the students started asking: “Well, how do we do this after our freshman year?” So we moved to Warren & Moore. We built it. Students were really, really happy with it. A couple years later we moved into this project which is four new residential colleges all in this kind of collegiate gothic style, which is what a lot of the Vanderbilt campuses is and is about architecturally. So the chancellor and Ms. Ingram got together and they kind of broadened their vision of how, how to carry out the residential college theme for all of our students. And so this next step was, was it four colleges transformation of a neighborhood. And it’s been wonderful. It’s 1300 beds across those four buildings. And the students and the faculty and the staff could not be happier.
Brooks Rutledge:
You mentioned you know, there’s four colleges, obviously Layton was retained for three of those. RCA being the first subsequently named for Chancellor’s Zeppos. As I said earlier, we’re in Rothschilds now, that’s the second college. And Layton is, is under construction for the third due to wrap early next year, students are coming in. Sean, you know, obviously Bob talked a little bit about the vision, but, but as it translates to scope and what Layton was retained to do beginning, if I remember right, back in the summer of 2017 talk a little bit about scope and, and what that vision meant as it, as it pertains to the bricks and mortar and our job onsite.
Sean Farrell:
Sure. So we, you’re right, we mobilized for the project site autumn of 2017. And our goal was to kind of figure out exactly what the obstructions may be related to an operating campus, which was one of our larger complex challenges along with the three buildings. We also redid the back, what they call the West End neighborhood. We took two streets out. We made them walking paths, and we brought in from our central plant. We brought in all the heating and cooling water that was going to feed these three buildings as part of what the university calls their Blue Sky initiative. So there was some lead related implementation there. But as far as implementing and getting going on a job, there was three things that we could think of that were going to be the most challenging for us.
Sean Farrell:
One was the logistics are really tight here. And, you know, Josh can attest to that. There’s just nowhere to put any material, there’s nowhere to really house any of the cranes or anything like that. So we had to really think through that. And then secondly there was four existing dormitories called the Carmichael Towers that had to be taken down, and they had to be done in sequence to our buildings getting put up. So we had to deal with that as well. And we ended up imploding, which we’ll talk a little bit about that later. But and then the third was how do we ensure that we meet the demands of the dates? Because the dates couldn’t move. The students were scheduled to move in at a certain time in August. And we had to ensure that that took place. So those were really the things that we looked the hardest at when you get into bricks and mortar. It was a matter of writing the schedules to the end date and working backwards.
Brooks Rutledge:
I remember the West End neighborhood arguably as difficult as the colleges themselves.
Bob Grummon:
Yeah, I would agree. And I will say, Sean you know, kudos to your team for every single summer, those buildings were ready to go. There was never a doubt that we would open on time and our students would move in on time. And, and you’re right. The West End neighborhood renovation was monumental. You talk about disrupting students’ lives for two years.
Brooks Rutledge:
Directly through—
Bob Grummon:
—Directly through their houses. And yeah. They, but you all were champions. I mean, you stuck to it. And we’d learned an awful lot. I think together.
Sean Farrell:
We did. And we learned also our communication skills amongst all the parties from Vanderbilt to communicating mainly to the students and the public. We really implemented some great programs that, that I think was instrumental in our success. I really do. So.
Bob Grummon:
And we had the pleasure of working through COVID.
Sean Farrell:
Well, yeah.
Bob Grummon:
What’s more fun than that?
Brooks Rutledge:
We get to that in a minute. I know there was an awful lot of prep work done. Obviously, Sean touched on logistics and some of the complexities that, you know, as it relates to the construction of the colleges. And I’d be interested to know, and I know others would too. I remember taking a field trip to Yale as kind of like hey, let’s go check out, you know, what, what they’re doing up here and check out the, the residential college program at, at the Yale campus you know, an Ivy League school in the northeast, knowing what Vanderbilt’s vision was for this campus. So that was some of our prep work. But, you know, from the Hastings side you know, and trying to bring the university and Chancellor Zeppos’ vision to life, what were some of the things that you guys were thinking about as far as, you know, design parameters, programming, aesthetics? Where did you take your inspiration from?
Meaghan Edwards:
Sure. So we had a design partnership with David M. Schwarz Architects out of DC. They were heavily involved with the early stages of the projects, the inspiration, the scope. But a lot of that was pulled directly from Vanderbilt’s campus. They have a strong architectural late 19th century, 20th century architecture style. So that set the tone for many of the building materials for the gothic collegiate style architecture, like you referenced many trips made to other universities pulling inspiration from their campuses.
Brooks Rutledge:
Trips overseas at all? Did you all make it across the pond to, to check anything out, you remember?
Bob Grummon:
Don’t think so.
Brooks Rutledge:
I don’t know that they, when I think of Collegiate gothic, I want to go to places like Oxford and Cambridge and those sorts of things. And certainly the Ivy League in the Northeast. I was just curious.
Bob Grummon:
And that’s certainly where the style gets its roots. And monasteries of the early, early Middle Ages. But, but yeah but we’re pulled a little more modern a little more United States versions of it.
Meaghan Edwards:
So specifically I feel Alumni Hall, Kirkland Hall. A lot of Vanderbilt specific projects set a lot of tone for the inspiration behind, behind the materiality with the brick, the stone. All of that was incorporated into the initial design stages of the projects.
Brooks Rutledge:
Well, there’s no missing them as you drive by on West End, that collegiate gothic style of architecture that is so unique even to Vanderbilt University. But certainly unique to those of us that have been Nashville residents a long time. And remember the Towers that stood in their place previously. Josh from in bringing Hastings vision to life and bringing the drawings, you know, taking it off of paper and putting it i into practice, what were some of the complexities that you faced, you know, as a senior superintendent responsible to lead the field? What were some of the challenges and obstacles that you felt like we had to overcome at Layton in order to make sure we got it right the first time. We didn’t compromise the end date and those sorts of things. Tell me about the pre-planning that took place in some of the, like I said sidestepping some of the landmines that may have otherwise crippled us.
Josh Stewart:
So I think first, just to kind of go back to Meaghan’s work here Schwarz gives a beautiful idea, and Meaghan has to work with, you know, current codes, standards, Nashville geology, Nashville water patterns you know, metropolitan utilities, and just bringing their vision to life with all those factors playing in. It was just huge. And it, it does make some construction complexities as well. You know we’re bordered to the North with West End Avenue pretty busy thoroughfare, right? 25th is, I think, the way every single person goes to and from work. Seems like it on the medical side—
Bob Grummon:
Well—
Brooks Rutledge:
–We’re trying to take deliveries. That’s exactly the way it seems. That’s where they’re all coming from.
Josh Stewart:
So really pretty busy. And then to the East, it was kind of a progressing border, right? When we started at Zeppos, we had Carmichael to the East, whether it was students there or demolition ongoing. Then when we started Rothschild, we had Carmichael three and four, I’m sorry, one and two to the east. And now we’ve got admissions building to the east. So we’ve been really locked in on all four sides throughout the project. So logistically, it’s just been super challenging. You’ve got elevation changes throughout that you have to, to deal with through the course of construction. You know, crane placement. We, we can’t just get as many as we want for budget and logistic concerns. So, you know, just being strategic on claim, crane placement, crane height we had the tower element as well. So at, at some point I heard that we had the, the tallest free stand freestanding tower crane east of the Mississippi River.
Sean Farrell:
That’s correct.
Sean Farrell:
And the reason for that is the tower was fifty-eight feet in diameter, so you couldn’t tie it. A tower crane to the building structure. It wouldn’t sustain it. So yeah, we were able to find and encourage and endeavor to find and get a design where we could put the tallest freestanding tower crane in the southeast United States for a period of time. It was about a year and a half, right. So, yeah, it was pretty neat. That was kind of a cool project. One of the things that you also have to kind of throw into the, the concerns mix here is Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s directly behind us. And they have a flight route for their for their life flight, which they’re the regional leader in life flight, bringing patients in and out that are critical, and they’re right in our path.
Sean Farrell:
So we had to deal with the FAA on multiple occasions to ensure our tower cranes met the FAA requirements. And, and that may sound like a small order, but it turned out to be quite an endeavor that we were able to conquer. And, and it’s just a, another testament to, to the entire team, Meaghan’s team and our designers and us all working together to a common goal. So it just illustrates exactly what it took. And that’s in a small sentence, just, wow, who would’ve thought you had to worry about flying a life flight over a building your building? That’s only five stories. So yeah. It’s, it’s just something to look to and go, wow, that was an accomplishment.
Bob Grummon:
And Josh, you didn’t mention, I mean, there’s all the construction hurdles you had to clear. There’s also all the university hurdles you had to clear, right? I mean, after life flight, then we have students living next door. To every single one of your pieces of construction, every single one of them. Which meant, you know, you’re not starting till 7:00 AM right. At the earliest you’re not really starting till nine because we don’t want you making noise until then. Right? And, and then we want you to close. We want you to stop working on graduation during exam periods, whenever there’s some kind of function, we want you to stop working. If we’ve got something going on. We’re like, well, you’re making too much noise, you got to stop. And so that’s part of the joy of working on the campus. But it certainly is difficult when you’ve got a hard finish date to meet, to work around those obstacles.
Sean Farrell:
You know, one of the things that I think also helped us, and get through that, and actually got better at it, was when we developed that communication system, that program where we had what we called quarterly sit downs with the students. And we also developed a website that got published every week, and it showed our routing and what was going to be happening the following week, so that the students and the instructors of those students had an idea of what to expect. And so that helped with the concerns of, even though maybe there wasn’t any noise, there’s always a concern, they’re going to make a bunch of noise. And when we started that and kind of got comfortable with that process, and the students got comfortable and the faculty got comfortable, I think that that really addressed a lot of those fears that come with construction and just general noise and dust, and everything comes with it.
Bob Grummon:
Y’all helped us establish that it’s possible. That our rules were not unreasonable. That we were then able to apply to other sites across campus, which is because we can constantly point Meaghan and say, Layton has no problem doing that for us, so I need you to do it too. And that’s, that’s been extremely helpful for us.
Brooks Rutledge:
Well, it’s nice that we can set the bar.
Bob Grummon:
Sorry about the tires, but you know.
Brooks Rutledge:
That’s right. You know, you said a difficult place to work, and in some respects, I think you’re right. It’s simply given the fact that it’s a place of higher learning. Right? It’s, it’s a heavily traveled campus. And, you know with a lot of ins and outs and protocols and regs and things that we need to abide by difficult, but I’m going to say desirable, right? I’ve, I’ve lived in this town an awful long time, and I’ve been a contractor now for twenty-two plus years. I can tell you that there’s not a contract that, that doesn’t want to be on this campus. I’ll assure you of that. And I know you know when Layton was given the opportunity to pursue the residential colleges and, and even after award the thing that we say all the time is we’ve got one swing.
Brooks Rutledge:
We don’t have an entire at bat with this university. We’ve got one swing at the plate. and my gosh, we better hit a home run. We’re not looking for singles or doubles. We’re going to hit a home run. Because if we’re, if we’re able to get on the campus and we’re able to build and we’re able to execute, then, you know, obviously, you know, you’re in good graces. But the building program here is robust. And it’s that recession proof backlog that as a contractor. You love to have in your, in, you know, in your repertoire and in your pipeline. You know so complex and difficult certainly. But I think with the right plea planning pre-planning the communication, those sorts of things you know, extremely successful.
Brooks Rutledge:
Those thus far. I say planning though, you, and you mentioned a second ago, COVID-19 could not plan for that. No. you know, beginning, what, January, February of 2020 here comes the coronavirus that, you know, COVID-19 and construction got weird. Like, it, it became much more, more difficult to build anywhere, but, but especially on a place of higher education. Josh, as far as like some of the protocols and rules and regs that, you know, that we had to abide by here at Layton, talk about what a day in the life of construction and COVID-19 look like on campus. At the time we were wrapping the first college, we were wrapping.
Sean Farrell:
That’s right.
Brooks Rutledge:
And had already begun construction.
Sean Farrell:
We were the home stretch to open up Zeppos College in August. That’s correct.
Josh Stewart:
So I guess it was what, middle of March, 2020 when, you know, everything kind of shut down one day. And thankfully we were deemed, what was the word? Essential. We were essential employees. Didn’t always feel that way at the time. But you know, it was March. We had the building due in four months, three and a half months. And we still had a long way to go. So I think we’re at around two hundred and twenty, two hundred thirty workers on site each day. You know, with temperature scanners at the gate prior to, you know, for every individual coming in the gate, it was, it was tough to keep up with. You know, it was still a little cold at the time. So the temperature scanner would be like 78 degrees. Okay, I think that’s okay.
Josh Stewart:
That guy read eighty-four, so that’s not okay. So, you know, yeah. Just like the rest of the world, we’re just trying to, you know, feel everything out, make sure we’re doing the right thing. You know, masks, we, everybody had to wear masks. We brought people in to sanitize all the surfaces weekly. And all just trying to figure our way through the world that made it difficult as the summer kind of set in and the Tennessee heat and humidity set in, you know, we’ve got safety regulations that we need to follow as well. So, you know, even me like, Hey, do we do mask or glasses because I can’t do ’em both, you know, either fogged or, so it was, it was a tough extra layer of things that we had to do. Now, on the flip side of that, without COVID, you know, I mentioned where we were kind of up against the gun without COVID and the traffic that I mentioned on West End and the traffic on 25th Avenue, without that turning into COVID traffic, I don’t know how we finished the job. We kind of worked on way.
Brooks Rutledge:
Unrestricted access.
Josh Stewart:
Unrestricted access. We, we could essentially do as much work as we wanted in each of those roads. You know, forklifts, that was kind of our last large elevation of masonry along the west side and the north side. A lot of landscaping to do on both of them. So without those, I don’t know how we could’ve done it. How, I mean, we had a, a crane set up in the middle of 25th Avenue that we didn’t have to run by public works. So, it benefited us. I mean, it was, it was very complicated. Now, when we got into the tower again, it was summertime going into fall and still with masks. And we didn’t have, you know, any great opportunities for material or manpower movement through the tower. So it was stairs again with a mask on our face up and down all day long. So lots of, lots of curve balls, but we were able to handle ’em.
Brooks Rutledge:
And For the record, how much weight did you lose during the construction of the West end tower?
Josh Stewart:
Fifteen pounds!
Josh Stewart:
Fifteen pounds. I distinctly remember a hydro pack underneath the safety vest. Every day, all day. Because you were climbing stairs like a madman.
Josh Stewart:
On my back. Everyday.
Sean Farrell:
You know, I’d point out too that we learned something also about ourselves. We adjusted we worked with the university. Bob was, and, and the leadership at Vanderbilt was very conscientious of the challenges. So they, they encouraged and were very agreeable to us bringing on two full-time nurses who took temperatures every day. That’s right. And they also approved all the expenditures related to sanitary cleaning. We actually got to the point we were sanitizing, I think, every other night. And we have one thing that we should be really proud of and it’s an unfortunate event with COVID, but we know of many of our sister projects around the community that literally shut down for a week, two weeks, three weeks. We only had to shut down for two days during the entire process, over one long weekend. And it was only because we had spiked in positive COVID tests to like nine. I don’t think we ever got over nine when it came to that. Our testing process and kind of the program that we set in play with our subcontract partners, they were all engaging in it. So we were catching it before they came to site. And that was really the key. Because It spreads the way it spread. If you got it on site, it was going to spread.
Brooks Rutledge:
We’ll, any given day, we had 350 to 400 men and women that were out there working. And, you know, I can’t, I remember hearing, you know, the close proximity within six foot of a how do you coordinate 350 to 400 people inside a building that’s, 230,000 square feet and keep them productive. Keep them active without, you know, the spread of, of COVID-19. Correct. Because schedule, as you said earlier, was not an option. To we could not compromise schedule, but we could also not compromise the safety and the health of those folks that were working on site.
Bob Grummon:
We, we had projects across campus, shut down. I mean, you all, were the lone contractor on site who didn’t shut down for any, for any, I mean, two days is a weekend. That’s not really shutting down. But, we had them shutting down for weeks at a time.
Sean Farrell:
And, and it’s important to point out that Vanderbilt University had a very stringent Yes. Protocol. Yep. So it wasn’t like we were able to stay open because it was a critical job. It was, we stayed open because of everybody being involved in the process and protocols that we, we implemented and followed through on.
Bob Grummon:
So we had, we had no intention of not having classes in August. Right. And, and that we did absolutely everything we could to make sure that happened. Right. And, and it was incredibly important that everybody played from the same, from the same page. Whether you agreed with the page or not, that’s the game we were going to play. And, and Mm-Hmm. That was, and, and y’all got right in line and, and didn’t hesitate.
Brooks Rutledge:
Well, I think through communication’s and partnership Yep. Yep. With the university. That’s right. It we fared as best we possibly could through that time. Despite the challenges, one of the coolest, I, we will call it a challenge but one of the coolest things I think I’ve ever been a part of especially having lived in the towers that used to grace this, this site is the implosion or actually multiple implosions. We first we blew up one tower mechanically demolished another, and then we, we demolished both the same day via, via implosion. Seriously, one of the coolest things I’ve ever been a part of I’ve ever seen, but the amount of planning and the amount of, honestly fear, at least in my side, I was, I was terrified just based on proximity to West End, proximity to buildings that are a hundred plus years old.
Brooks Rutledge:
Like there’s a lot to think about when you’re going to drop to, what were they, 12, 14 stores? 14, yeah. Fourteen story buildings simultaneously ten feet away from West End Avenue. Josh once again similar to West End Tower you were instrumental in coordinating the effort as it relates to the, to the implosion or multiple implosions. Tell us a little bit about that. I was blessed to get to watch it that day, but really, didn’t play a role at all in planning it or, or carrying out the various processes and protocols. Tell us a little bit about what especially the simultaneous double implosion Right. What that looked like, particularly from pre-planning to the day of.
Josh Stewart:
So it was the, the preparation for an implosion isn’t just plant some explosives and hit a button right there. There’s a lot of free work that has to go into it. The first of which is getting all of the furniture and equipment out of the building. Right. So I think students moved out the 17th of May. It was 2021, they moved out the 17th. We took possession of that building the 24th of May, 2021. And it was sixty straight days of 60 hour, or, yeah, sixty straight days of 60 hour weeks. With our demolition partners getting ready, tearing out walls, weakening structure throughout so that we can make those things fall. We did have, the Bellevue House, I guess one of the oldest structures on campus no less than, or no more than twenty-five feet away.
Josh Stewart:
So, protecting that, we did have West End. And then again, you’re loading the building with explosives that I guess the, the wrong kind of people might want. So protecting businesses on the street, across the street next to us notifying campus, once explosives started being planted in the building we hired some, some off-duty police officers to guard set up big light towers to, to watch the site each night. And then kind of moving into it, it was, it was down to the wire, similar to, we’re not missing the date for kids moving in. It was, we are not missing July 31st because rescheduling is not, not a terribly easy thing to do. We are, we’re mobilizing Nashville Fire Department, we’re mobilizing Nashville Police Department, we’re mobilizing Vanderbilt Police Department. All of the resources, all of the departments within the university notifying the businesses across the street.
Josh Stewart:
Hey, you can’t work today until noon. You know that there, there was so many things that went into just getting everything organized that July 31st was it was there, it, that, that date was looming. So we made it that morning. I mean, you said it was scary meet. I was, I was super scared. And the news interviewed me before the implosion. Not any words. I was not able to, to, to tell you as much about the preparation when they asked me that morning as I was just now. But that, that was a very nerve, nerve wracking day. But they both came down. They came down be beautifully. We’ve got some great videos of that. And
Brooks Rutledge:
When Nashvillians came out in droves, they did, they did.
Meaghan Edwards:
That morning I brought, brought my children an event.
Bob Grummon:
It was an event.
Meaghan Edwards:
After it was complete, my youngest asked if, if he could see it again.
Sean Farrell:
There, there’s one thing that we, we sort of overlooked. And that was the first implosion after we gutted the building. We had worked as a community service, if you recall, Bob, We worked with Nashville Fire Department, and they were able to come in and do what they call high-rise training for high-Rise fire before we dropped it, dropped the building. So they had five days, I believe, five or seven days where the firemen from all kinds of different departments throughout the city came and, and repelled in and busted through doors and did all the kind of things that they’ve always wanted to be able to train for in, in Vanderbilt University. And with our, with Layton working side by side, we were able to do that. And that, that was a real big community event. We actually, Layton received a specific citation from the Chief of Fire department for good for Nashville. So I thought that was a pretty neat thing that we could add to it to the whole thing.
Brooks Rutledge:
Bob, remind me, were there, I would say there’s some nostalgia associated with, with those towers that have been here since the fifties. Did the university, what were the efforts as it relates to saving, were, were there things whether it was bricks or, I can’t remember the things that the university did to kind of commemorate the fact that these towers had stood on campus for 70 years.
Bob Grummon:
You know, we, we collected bricks. We gave bricks away to, to, to folks who wanted them. And we kind of created a whole class of memorabilia for, for people who wanted to participate in, in either the demolition of them or have that, have that participation extend into the new residential colleges. But it was, it was yeah. I mean, it was an opportunity and, and folks were, folks were very excited and, and we got all kinds of emails and calls about: “Why are you doing this?” “Hey, I used to live in this floor. I used to live in that floor.”
Bob Grummon:
It was great. It was great. It a great event and people loved going to watch it. And it was a, it was a Nashville thing.
Brooks Rutledge:
Well, and I’m an owner of one of those, one of those bricks. Because I, again, this is a university so steeped in tradition so proud of the culture that, that you’ve been able to, to develop over your many, many, many years. You know, it’s, it’s an, it is a university rich in initiatives especially of late. Right. And, and that that includes certainly diversity, equity, inclusion it, it includes sustainability. This is, I mean, especially as, as we hear about what’s coming we can also talk a little bit about these colleges and sustainability effort associated with these residential colleges where lead certification was, was a non-conversation. It was going to happen.
Bob Grummon:
So what we’re, so the university isn’t necessarily interested in the, in the certification. I mean, that’s, that’s a nice plus, right? Right. That’s a bonus. Right. Generally speaking, our, the way we kind of set up our guidelines, we’re going to get lead silver. Right. Just by opening the doors. We’re going to get that right.
Bob Grummon:
Meaghan and her team, and, and y’all and your team worked really hard to push that envelope for us. And, and we’re, we’re extremely grateful for it. And when, when, when all is said and done, Zeppos will end up with the lead platinum the other two colleges will be lead gold. And, and it’s, and, and the neighborhood is getting lead certified. And, and so it’s, I mean, it’s been a, in terms of, in terms of that initiative, yeah. The university is thrilled. We, we, it’s a success. It’s a big team success. A commitment to doing something that trying to meet a budget. And the first thing everyone wants to cut is, well, let’s cut all the lead stuff out. That’s got to be outrageously expensive. And it’s not, it never is. It’s just, it’s easy. That’s an easy target. But you all worked extremely hard with the designers to make sure that, that we got what we needed out of it. And, and it’s, yeah, it’s been fantastic.
Brooks Rutledge:
What were some of the design parameters as it really, I mean, Bob’s exactly right. I think at a hundred percent CDs, you’re, you’re there, right? You’re at lead silver just by the, by the very way in which Hastings and, and the design team members put this thing together and what the university requires. What, what were some of those sustainability features that, that were at Zeppos, at Rothschild and at RCC that Sure. That Hastings was thinking about? So
Meaghan Edwards:
Specifically at Zeppos in the basement, there is a, a cistern that captures a lot of the rainwater and harvest it for use and low flow fixture reduction to reduce the indoor water use. So that was specific to Zeppos itself across the board. Careful choice of material selections. Recycled material content geographically located materials played an important part choice of lighting fixtures. But aside from the, the small moves in that regard the building design in and of itself, we didn’t have large spans of, of glazing. So, you know, it was pretty limited and really helped with the conditioning of the building. And like Bob said Zeppos received platinum and the next two were striving for gold.
Bob Grummon:
So with the, with those cisterns, one of the other things that, that was made possible by the design and was able to then incorporate the colleges and the neighborhood we can collect the condensate and the rainwater and pump back up to the plant to use for, for our cooling towers. Right. Which is a huge deal. I mean, we’re a massive campus and we, we Cogen a lot of our utilities. Being able to collect that water and reuse it is phenomenal. And that’s an important feature.
Sean Farrell:
And that ties back to the, to the neighborhood improvement because the piping from your central plant, we came through the neighborhood, I don’t know, I’m going to say around a half a mile. Yeah, yeah. Eight feet, ten feet, twelve feet underground. And that ties and feeds chilled water and, and some of this Yep. Code gen return water is coming from these buildings going back to the central plant. That’s right. That’s right. Part of your blue, they call it your blue sky program, your initiative. So yeah. Agreed.
Brooks Rutledge:
Let’s, let’s go back to the neighborhood for just a second. I remember as a student here, there was an awful lot of asphalt. There was there overhead power lines and, and, and the voltage lines. You know, and, and I remember when, when my now wife she was a student over at Peabody College, and I remember walking over to see her one day and just thinking, it looks totally different over here. Yeah. I mean, it, it’s a very different campus here at Peabody than, than, you know, over there on, on the West End side. You can’t say that anymore. No. It, it is arguably as beautiful, if not more beautiful in
Bob Grummon:
Interestingly, that the comments that that, that I hear about West End Neighborhood and the residential colleges, everyone’s thrilled about the colleges. They’re like, yeah, those, those are great. These are lovely buildings. The biggest transformation is that ten acres of West End neighborhood, where, where, you know, we, we removed all the overhead power, all the overhead data lines, all the squirrel runs, took all that out, eliminated all the parking, took all the asphalt out. We moved the dumpsters around, so they were no longer just open containers out in the middle of the yard. I mean, it, I remember it, it transformed the whole neighborhood. Lovely smell. Yeah. Lovely. And on top of that, we made it all accessible. Right? I mean, every single house now you can get into without going upstairs, you can get all the way through the neighborhood without going upstairs. There are no obstacles. And, and that was a huge transformation. And, and it is, it’s quite, it’s probably the biggest transformation the university’s had in a long time. Being able to move from, from that kind of very car-centric special neighborhood to, to something that’s more knitted into the fabric of the university. More pedestrian pathways. Yep.
Brooks Rutledge:
Is that the plan? What are the university’s plans as it relates to central campus and, and, and, you know, some of the upcoming projects specifically, you know, the West End neighborhood is, is the plan to continue to transform the university in that, you know, in that regard from a standpoint of, of the beautification of the,
Bob Grummon:
You know, it’s, it’s a university campus. We’re always looking to evolve and improve. And, and we’re going to, and, and as we, as we come across things that we need to update, we’re going to and we’re looking at different, you know, we, we’ve got five big kind of districts on campus and, and West End Neighborhood, I wouldn’t say is done, but it’s, it’s, it’s had a lot of, it’s had a lot of attention. And we’re, we’re now kind of looking towards central neighborhood and we’re looking towards the academic core of campus. We’ve got ongoing projects in, in the athletic neighborhood you know, and so we got plans for everywhere. We always do. We always have but West End Neighborhood, this has, this has been a, a really nice ribbon to, to wrap around this, this part of campus. And, and give the, you know, give the students a place that’s, that’s a home and, and that that gives ’em the, yeah. This is Vanderbilt, this is the way it’s supposed to be.
Brooks Rutledge:
Well, I can, I can speak on behalf of Layton when I say I hope we’re a part of those plans. We really, really want to be a part of those plans. We’ve, we’ve enjoyed very much the past six years working in partnership with, with the university, with, with Hastings Architecture, you know, a firm that we have a, a tremendous amount of experience with. And, and certainly folks like Sean Ferrell Josh Stewart, and, and a giant team you know, working hard every day to, to execute. We’re, we’re ecstatic to be here. And certainly excited for the, for the future on campus. Yeah.
Bob Grummon:
Good. Well, let me add something that you, you touched on really briefly, but it’s something that is, is really, really important to us. And you guys, you guys have been a game changer for us. And that’s getting diversity into our construction projects.
Bob Grummon:
You know, Nashville can be a challenging market. There’s a whole lot of firms that have been here a really long time, and they’re all buddies with each other, and they all tend to work together. And that tends to limit other people, other people’s ability to get into the market and participate in a meaningful way. And that’s, and that’s true, that’s true across campus, right? Absolutely. Across campus. Across the city. That’s true. When y’all got here, and we started and we started, we started measuring, right? We’re like, well, what, what, how are we doing? How, how, how is diversity working across our construction projects? Because That’s a, that’s a, I remember relatively easy thing to measure. And I think we started and we’re 2%, you know, I mean, it was, it was no number to be proud of.
Bob Grummon:
I mean, it was, it was, it just, it is what it is. But, but we, we approached you all and said, look we, we really want you to lead this charge for us, right? A lot of folks are having a very difficult time making any meaningful progress for us in diversity on, on our projects. And they’re giving us all kinds of reasons why, none of which we believe. But they keep giving us the same reasons. And we need you to prove that this is not true. And, and y’all were willing to do it, right? I mean, Zeppos, we got started kind of late residential college B or Rothschild, this one, you guys started pushing the envelope for us, and we got up to 10%. We’re like, okay, that’s pretty good for a project that, you know, where we didn’t, we, we were already kind of halfway down the road and y’all tackled it.
Bob Grummon:
We got to C, which is the one we’re under construction now, and it’ll finish in May, June, somewhere around there. We’re at 30%. And that’s huge. And, and now, and now we have the ability to tell our other contractors, Layton did it just like they did at COVID. Just like they’ve done meeting our deadlines. Layton can meet the Layton can show you how to do it, and we’re happy to talk to ’em and have them explain it to you, or you can figure it out. But, but it’s a, it’s, I it’s a really important to us, and we’re so proud that you have been able to do it on a big meaningful project for us. You know, we’ve got a hundred and what, $124 million job, and we hit 30% on diversity. And, and it’s fantastic. It’s, it’s exactly the kind of thing that we, that we need to have happen, that we want to have happen, that we, and that we know is possible. And we’re, we’re happy about it. So
Sean Farrell:
For, for us to end on that, we’re super excited about the fact we get a lot of feedback. Josh gets it in the field. I hear it. At, at, at my position, the local folks that now are involved at Vanderbilt who we’re always thinking for years, I’ll never be able to work at Vanderbilt because I’m just not big enough. I’m not, I don’t have the abilities, I don’t have the connections. And this diversity endeavor has offered that.
Bob Grummon:
Yeah. Well, and it’s, and it’s meaningful subcontractors, who’s participating, it’s not—
Sean Farrell:
Their heart’s in the right place.
Bob Grummon:
Yeah. Right. I mean, they’re, they’re, you know, the big contractors are teaming up with the little guys. Giving ’em a chance, bringing ’em on board. Right. You guys are, you guys are working with ’em, making it happen. And, and like I said, it’s meaningful, it’s meaningful additions. Right. It’s not, it’s not the little, okay, that’s a garbage sub. We don’t who caress Yeah. Just hire them. It, it hasn’t been that. And, and it’s, it’s wonderful to see it and to, to, to just know that the university’s grateful that that’s happening. So
Brooks Rutledge:
Well, I appreciate, I’m really glad you brought that up. And, and to Sean’s point, we’re so proud of, of that effort, proud of, of, of that initiative. Long overdue. But, but super excited for what the future holds. And with that, thank you so much everybody for, for joining us today and look forward to the next time.
Sean Farrell:
Had fun. Thanks a lot.
Bob Grummon:
Thank You.
Narrator:
Thanks for listening! For more episodes like this, you can find Building Conversations on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Audible, YouTube, and the STO Building Group website.