Construction on Mississippi State University is an almost constant occurrence.
Students become accustomed to the assembly of new buildings, demolition and renovations of older buildings on a regular basis all over campus.
Chris Monson, research associate professor for building construction science, said in his 14 years at MSU, he has seen nonstop construction on campus.
“Keeping a large conglomeration of people and buildings going through time takes constant maintenance, rebuilding and investment in new things,” Monson said. “As departments, teaching and research change, those investments have to be made. That’s our responsibility as a university.”
The construction is not as frequent as other universities in the country, however.
“Compared to a lot of other universities, we’ve had far less construction,” he said. “We’re a poor state, and we don’t have a lot of funding. We haven’t had a classroom building built in decades; that’s rare for a place that’s grown as much as we have.”
The contractor is often different for each of these projects. David Whatley, construction administrator at MSU, acts as the owner’s representative. He said state law requires all MSU projects to be publicly bid.
“We publicly advertise in The Clarion Ledger and The Starkville Daily,” Whatley said. “It’s usually a month-long process of bidding. The lowest bidder is typically the one we get a contract with.”
MSU currently has several projects in progress, but students may notice how quickly each one is completed.
Whatley said the contract the company signs once MSU has accepted the bid specifies a certain amount of calendar days in which the project must be completed.
Jason Walker, senior project manager of the new Arbor Hall residence halls project with Harrell Contracting group, said it is not an easy task to meet the required amount of days.
“We have 365 calendar days; we started work July 5, 2011 and are scheduled to finish by July 5, 2012,” he said. “Typically you’d see a job of this size being done in 14 to 16 months. Twelve months is a real challenge.”
To finish on time, the project requires scheduling and plenty of manpower on site.
“Having built South Hall, we were familiar with what it took to do one (residence hall), so we multiplied that times two and worked on scheduling to make sure we had everything we needed it in order to make it,” he said. “On average, we have about 125 people, but that varies. They’re usually at work from about 6:30 in the morning until 7 at night.”
David Bryant, over the new football facility project with Jesco, also has to keep large numbers on site to get the job done.
On average, they have up to 250 employees on any given day, he said.
The football facility is scheduled to be completed within 14 months. Work began in October, and it should be ready by the first of the year.
“It’s going to be the complete football program from the strength training, locker rooms, training rooms, auditoriums, multipurpose rooms and facilities, coaching offices, film rooms, injury treatment areas, hot and cold pools and a kitchen all going in one building,” Bryant said.
Bryant said the project is tough, but it is achievable.
“Fourteen months for a facility of that magnitude is a challenge, but that level of challenge isn’t something we haven’t done before,” he said. “It’s just a short and demanding schedule.”
Meeting the deadline, Bryant said, takes lots of additional time and money.
“Sometimes you have to work overtime; They generally work from daylight to about 6 p.m., but sometimes they’re pulling concrete at 3 a.m. to beat the heat of the day,” he said. “You take a lot of that into consideration when you bid the contract. You may be forced to spend more money on materials to get them expedited, and you just try to overcome those obstacles that come to you as best you can. It’s a never-ending thing. Even if we stopped building things, there would still be construction on campus. There’s stuff that has to be taken care of, remodeled, renovated and fixed up. The construction never stops.”