Pavarini North East provided preconstruction and construction management services for the development of NBC Sports Group’s centralized broadcast production facility.
Clairol’s former headquarters and manufacturing facility were transformed into broadcast, technical, production and 4-6 TV studio spaces as well as administration and support office spaces.
Over the course of several months, our firm provided preconstruction services to refine the scope of work to meet NBC’s budget and schedule requirements. The original scope of work included the full renovation of both buildings totaling almost 300,000sf, in addition to the construction of a 400+ car parking deck. After the conceptual budget was established, the scope of work was significantly refined to meet NBC’s budget parameters.
The revised scope called for the renovation of the 180,000sf manufacturing building to house the broadcast studio, technical, production and TV studio space, make-up and green rooms, data center, and support spaces. A 40,000sf mezzanine area was added for additional space, for a total area of 220,000sf. Lastly the existing parking lot was refinished. The second building, the office administration building and connector link (bridge between the two buildings), was completed as a Phase II project and the parking garage was put on hold indefinitely.
The scope of work entailed metal and glass curtainwall along the north elevation of the manufacturing building, a 40,000sf mezzanine within the manufacturing building, MEPS infrastructure to support state-of-the-art broadcast studios, a “Green” roof, a generator plant with three 2,000kVA generators, and a new cooling tower and chiller plant.
The broadcast studios and technical space are housed in the manufacturing building, which boasts 24ft-high ceilings. The extended ceiling heights were ideal for the studio and production equipment including lighting and sound.
The team provided a due diligence report analyzing the existing building’s infrastructure and MEPS systems. They made recommendations to the design team as it related to the proposed scope of work. Additional structural support was incorporated into the design to support the rooftop chillers and equipment, as well as the open floor plan. Columns were removed from the space to maximize the floor plate. They confirmed that the as-built drawings were accurate and in fact what was on the drawings was actually built or modified accordingly. They developed a demolition plan to ensure critical equipment that was remaining would continue to run without interruption.
Once the scope of work had been redefined the team worked to refine the budgets. Value engineering and constructability sessions were held with the architect to review the design. Alternates were proposed that reduced the costs without sacrificing the design intent. Significant changes included redesign of the mechanical system, which eliminated the use of rooftop fans, and alternate architectural finishes and materials
Recommendations were provided to NBC for review and approval. Through this effort the team reduced the project costs by almost $4M. The savings was incorporated into the final budget. The project was on an aggressive, fast-tracked schedule. The project schedule was developed to meet NBC’s broadcasting demands. During preconstruction the team provided creative solutions to accomplish the work on schedule, without sacrificing the quality. The team procured long-lead items including the chiller, UPS, switchgear, AHU, and curtainwall to ensure their availability and timely delivery. Selected subcontractors worked along side the architect and engineer to prepare shop drawings during the design phase of the project.
Each element of the schedule was carefully coordinated to achieve the “go-live” date. Despite a one month delay in the start of construction due to final changes in the design, the project team had proactively modified the schedule and resequenced select scopes of work to accommodate the further compressed schedule.