From power plants to surgical services, hospitals update their infrastructure
For five years, a crew from Hatzel & Buehler Inc. advanced the massive but meticulous renovation of the Johns Hopkins Hospital North Plant – a power distribution center that supports roughly half of the multi-million-square-foot hospital campus.
The critical work at Johns Hopkins meant the renovation had to be designed to include the minimum number of outages and never do anything that could compromise life safety. Existing power equipment would have to remain in place and operational until new systems were powered up. The plant, however, had virtually no free space to accommodate installations.
“We had to be really creative with the manufacturer to obtain equipment,” said James Sauter, Project Manager.
The project team carefully selected and customized equipment so that a piece could be delivered, installed and powered up. Then, the equipment it replaced would be removed.
“We had to work in phases and replace one piece at a time in order to keep the customer’s service on. We worked really hard to reduce the duration of outages,” Sauter said. That effort produced “a really, really nice product at the end of the day. It’s very clean, it’s code compliant and they ended up with more space due to sizing of equipment, so the plant is more usable.”
The Baltimore-Washington corridor enjoys an abundance of outstanding healthcare institutions. That legacy, however, comes with a huge and challenging building stock, including historic buildings, repeatedly renovated facilities, state-of-the-art centers and an abundance of buildings that need to keep evolving to support modern medical technologies and new standards of care.
Delivering those capabilities requires contractors to execute demanding, specialized and innovative renovations while supporting ongoing operations. After a lull in contracting during the pandemic, healthcare facilities are moving forward with numerous renovations, including improved patient care areas, updated laboratories, installation of new technologies and updates on facilities ranging from cafeterias to pediatric wings to morgues.
At MacKenzie Contracting Company, healthcare projects account for 50-60 percent of annual revenues. Recent projects have included several breast cancer centers, laboratories, pharmacy renovations, more attractive patient rooms and public areas, and one Covid-inspired design change.
“One trend we have repeatedly seen is ‘back of the house circulation’ for medical staff,” said Marty Copsey, President and Chief Operating Officer. Whereas previous medical facilities would have healthcare providers and patients walking the same hallways, “the new layouts we are seeing have a front-of-house corridor for patient uses and a back-of-house corridor for staff… This has been driven by Covid to limit exposure of staff to patients.”
Some renovations involve highly specialized systems.
Inside the Greater Baltimore Medical Center (GBMC), Plano-Coudon Construction has been working since September 2021 to renovate the central sterile processing facility. Surrounded by operating rooms, the facility continuously collects, cleans, sterilizes and repackages surgical instruments.
The renovation, understandably, required stringent Infection Control Risk Assessment (ICRA) measures, negative air machines, tight barriers and other initiatives to prevent any contamination of the hospital space. The Plano-Coudon team had to coordinate with hospital staff to avoid impacting medical work, gain access to infrastructure that served the sterilization facility and ensure that new installations would not clash with existing systems. But the construction crew also had to enable 24/7 sterilization to continue.
“Because this is specialized sterilizing equipment, it couldn’t just be moved and operated elsewhere,” said Merissa Detwiler, Senior Project Manager. Consequently, “the hospital rented two sterilizer trailers and set them outside to keep the process going… It was a unique challenge to work with that vendor, make sure all the correct utilities were run to the trailers, and build a separate corridor that creates a clean, conditioned environment between the hospital and the trailer setup.”
At the same time, hospitals are embarking on a string of infrastructure improvements. At Johns Hopkins Hospital campus, infrastructure work is sufficiently ample that both Hatzel & Buehler and Denver-Elek have permanently posted employees to the site.
Like the North Plant project, most infrastructure upgrades present contractors with major space constraints. On top of the requirement that new systems be installed before old equipment is removed, available space for electrical and mechanical gear is typically smaller than the space in modern buildings and the corridors leading to that space are often tight.
“Where we would bring in one large piece of equipment in normal conditions, we might have it manufactured in nine separate pieces, assemble it onsite and have a manufacturer’s representative come out to recertify it,” Sauter said.
“It takes a lot of thought and planning by the foremen and supervisors to come up with a workable plan for an installation,” said Stephen Karminski, Project Manager at Denver-Elek. “For projects in some of the older buildings, we have taken graph paper and cut out pieces of equipment to scale then walked around the building to see if we could get those pieces down the corridors and around the corners.”
Those tight spaces also complicate contractors’ prefabrication plans.
“On the one hand, we are trying to prefabricate as much as possible to reduce our time and our storage needs onsite. On the other, we are cutting things down to make them fit,” Karminski said. “It takes a lot to figure out what kind of magic will work in each space.”
Project teams working in older healthcare buildings often encounter unexpected infrastructure issues – equipment that is malfunctioning or nearing its end of life, piping installations that differ from as-built drawings and electrical or mechanical systems that service unexpected areas. Those discoveries prompt changes in project plans. They have also prompted some contractors, including Denver-Elek and Hatzel & Buehler, to offer a proactive service, namely alerting clients to upcoming maintenance or equipment-replacement needs.
“We will evaluate areas that we work in and provide clients with reports of our findings and recommendations,” Sauter said. “Certain types of equipment may have a manufacturing lead time of 54 weeks which isn’t out of the ordinary right now. If we see equipment that should be replaced within that duration or shortly afterward, we will recommend the client start thinking about replacing it now. It could function fine for the next year and a half, but if it fails, you could be without service for more than a year. We want to get in front of that issue.”
Some healthcare clients are also creating provisions within existing projects to address neglected or looming infrastructure issues.
“As we complete demolition in an area, hospital facilities staff will survey the space to identify old piping or piping that is no longer in use,” Detwiler said. “While we have everything opened up, they will decide what they want removed or replaced, and that is covered under an allowance in the contract.”
Contractors face growing, evolving cyber threats
As the construction industry adopted more digital processes and information-sharing platforms in recent years, the tech world experienced another trend.
In 2022, the United States saw the number of cyberattacks jump 57 percent over the previous year due partly to agile hackers and ransomware gangs targeting workplace collaboration tools, such as Teams, One Drive and Google Drive. Roughly 40 percent of attacks in 2022 hit small businesses, according to Accenture, and only 14 percent of those companies were prepared to defend themselves.
Overall, 83 percent of organizations experienced at least one data breach in 2022, according to IBM, and the cost of recovering from a successful cyberattack hit a record high of $4.35 million per incident.
Consequently, security experts insist that cybercrime is a rapidly evolving threat that no business – whether you are a Fortune 500 enterprise or a small construction contractor – can afford to ignore.
“My concern for small and mid-size construction businesses is you don’t have to be a target to be a victim,” said Christopher (Scott) Martin, who leads the Cyber Practice at RCM&D. “The problem is there are economies and ecosystems in Eastern Europe, Russia and South America that develop ransomware and malware and sell it to criminal gangs who cast a wide net, seeing what data they can access. There are office parks in certain areas of the world where this is what they do as their business.”
Once a hacker gains access to a company’s computer system, they can conduct a ransomware attack and lock up the company’s devices and data until a bitcoin ransom is paid. Or, hackers can “lay dormant and live off the land” in a company’s systems, said Kevin O’Brien, Chief Information Officer at Advance Business Systems. “They can maintain a foothold for weeks, months, even years and siphon information out of your environment. They potentially could learn your entire book of business, your financials, your bank information and even move laterally go into your customers’ sites. That’s how this turns into a gigantic snowball effect.”
Hackers can then monetize the information they access on the dark web “which is like eBay for criminals,” O’Brien said. “Personal identification information, protected health information, financial information all carry a value and can be sold.”
Protecting a company from cyberattacks requires layered and customized security measures, constant monitoring, continuous upgrades and education for all staff members, according to cybersecurity professionals. Planning appropriate measures typically starts with conducting a cyber vulnerability assessment.
Advance Business Systems conducts both free and paid, in-depth analyses (which typically last 20 hours for a small company) to identify security gaps or vulnerabilities that could allow hackers to access a company’s server, virtual private network, Cloud accounts or other systems.
“We look at the online security posture of a business from an adversary’s view,” O’Brien said.
Numerous common situations can create those gaps, O’Brien said. They include security weaknesses in old or DIY websites, failure by a staffer or internet service provider to install all software upgrades or plugins, and company practices that don’t produce strong password protection or multi-factor authentication in order to access e-mail or shared files. The addition of a new camera system, card access system or other Internet of Things devices to a company’s network may not have been properly secured. And then there are the risks of “data sprawl” or the placement of company files on a variety of platforms – including personal Google Drives and Dropboxes – which can increase a company’s cyber vulnerability.
The vulnerability assessment produces a gap analysis of the company’s online security and a list of proposed measures to “minimize the attack surface” for hackers, O’Brien said.
Companies can address risks through updated technologies, safe computing policies (such as a data governance policy that specifies where files must be stored) and cyber training for staff. However, those efforts need to be ongoing.
“Definitely the most difficult aspect of managing cyber risk is keeping pace with the evolving threat environment. It’s a giant game of whack-a-mole,” Martin said, noting that hackers keep developing new malware and attack strategies. A global study by Web Arx Security concluded that 300,000 pieces of new malware are created daily.
More and more companies are purchasing cyber insurance which can cover the costs of responding to and recovering from a cyberattack.
“We are also seeing most contracts these days requiring some aspect of cybersecurity, privacy, liability coverage to be carried by the parties contracted,” Martin said.
Insurance policies, however, can’t reverse the loss of productivity or impact on business relations caused by a cyberattack. Insurance policies aim to make clients ‘whole’ but not fund improvements, so companies often incur uncovered expenses purchasing up-to-date technology after an attack.
And beginning in 2021, cyber insurance became harder to get. Due to rising rates and severity of cyberattacks plus flaws in the previous insurance pricing model, underwriters imposed more stringent criteria for qualifying for insurance, increased policy rates (as much as 50 to 100 percent increases for renewals), increased deductibles and reduced coverage.
Consequently, Martin urges companies to engage in an ongoing practice of reviewing and updating their cybersecurity. Typically six months before a cyber policy is set to renew, RCM&D urges clients to complete a self-assessment questionnaire that covers 12-16 cybersecurity areas. RCM&D also uses BitSight – an external scanning technology that assesses an organization’s domain for known cyber vulnerabilities and security gaps.
“It is very similar to your personal credit score where there is a range from 250 to 900 and it assesses your cyber risk hygiene,” Martin said, adding that underwriters use BitSight scores when determining insurance rates.
The goal of the entire review “is to identify any issues or red flags before we get to an underwriter’s desk and give ourselves time to implement technologies or solutions that would put us in a Grade A exposure,” he said. “In a market where you are getting hit with rate increases, retention increases and reduction in coverage, we want to minimize that impact as much as possible.”
The added benefit of regular cybersecurity reviews and continuous upgrades, according to Martin and O’Brien, is clients also experience a decline in data breaches.
Foundation grants foster the next generation of builders
From building outdoor classrooms and providing trades teachers with essential materials to planning the first Maryland Construction Career Days, recipients of this year’s BC&E Foundation grants have big, enthusiastic plans to teach young people about opportunities in the construction industry.
“The core mission of the Foundation is to give back to the community and help support the next generation of craftsmen in Baltimore. Through the grants, we have the opportunity to support some really cool projects,” said Matt Verderamo, a member of the Foundation Grants Committee and Vice President, Preconstruction and Sales at Alliance Exterior Construction.
In total, the Foundation awarded $14,374 to six organizations in 2022: $2,500 to ACE Mentor Program of Baltimore, $3,174 to Kennedy Krieger High School Career and Technology Center, $2,500 to the Maryland Center for Construction Education and Innovation (MCCEI), $1,800 to the masonry program at the Carroll County Career and Technology Center (CCCT), $1,900 to the welding program at CCCT and $2,500 to Tools 4 Success. Since its inception in 1998, the Foundation grant program has provided nearly $667,000 to local trades education programs.
In selecting this year’s grant recipients, “we choose the organizations where we thought we could make the most impact,” Verderamo said. “We are excited to help those organizations experience some real gains.”
Among the six grant recipients, that impact is evident.
A CPA with multiple construction industry clients, Laura Concannon founded the nonprofit Tools 4 Success in 2014 after some heart-wrenching encounters with local schools. While participating in high school career days, she regularly encountered two types of students — college-bound kids who were excited about their future and non-college-oriented kids who felt like they didn’t have good career options.
“I left one school crying. Here we have half of our students being left in the dark because the message is you can’t be successful if you don’t go to college,” she said.
Concannon knew that construction trades offered excellent career opportunities, but she also saw that vocational programs were suffering. Through Tools 4 Success, she began providing trades teachers at city schools with funds to purchase essential materials.
“I have carpentry teachers who don’t have wood or nails or drills. I have masonry teachers who don’t have bricks, stone or concrete,” she said. “If I can send them a gift card, they can purchase the basics to teach.”
At CCCT, BC&E Foundation grants this year – and in previous years – help instructors properly equip workshops to teach students the fundamentals of masonry and welding.
Masonry instructor Mike Campanile eagerly recalls the first grant his program ever received – funds to purchase reef ball forms that are used to rebuild oyster populations in the Chesapeake Bay.
“They are complicated forms made of fiberglass that you have to assemble, pour concrete, let them cure and strip them,” Campanile said.
The project not only fit perfectly with the concrete-mixing portion of his curriculum, it also got students excited about using their skills to benefit the Chesapeake Bay.
This year’s grant will enable the masonry program to purchase badly needed levels.
Meanwhile, the grant to CCCT’s welding program will enable students to complete hands-on projects – an essential part of the curriculum that covers multiple welding processes, ARC, MIG and TIG welding as well as the use of drill presses, grinders, shears, punches and saws.
In addition to class projects, “I would previously let students build a project of their choosing – most common are benches and work tables,” instructor Michael Schweinsberg said in his grant application. “Due to inflation, the price of steel has doubled and my budget no longer permits me to provide the materials they would need.”
The Kennedy Krieger High School Career and Technology Center is channeling its grant to benefit both its construction trades program and the entire school. In the peri-pandemic world, classes have been using the campus’s outdoor spaces more regularly and students have realized the benefits of more time in nature. The campus, however, lacks adequate outdoor seating and tables. The Foundation grant will fund the purchase of ready-to-assemble picnic tables and Adirondack chairs which will be built by the school’s construction students.
The activity will help students improve their ability to follow written and pictorial directions, refine and replicate construction processes, improve their motor skills and their ability to use tools, said Lindsay Turwy, Principal. Such projects also help students develop broader work skills.
“We find that students in the construction trade tend to be good team players… This also leads to these students often being seen as leaders among the student population,” Turwy said.
MCCEI, which has received seven Foundation grants since 2015, conducts multiple trades education initiatives, including the MCCEI Guest Speaker Program that arranges industry speakers and construction field trips for classes, Construction Summer Camps that expose middle and high school students to career opportunities and the MCCEI Internship Program that helps small and mid-size contractors attract interns. This year’s Foundation grant will help MCCEI advance two initiatives – volume five of its Build Your Path construction career guidebook for high school students and the first-ever Maryland Construction Career Days.
Designed to include high school students from the Baltimore area and surrounding counties, “it will be a place where employers and organizations will come and bring their big tools, bulldozers and other equipment so that students can really get into it, get dirty and see how exciting the construction industry in Maryland is,” said Emma Shirey, Program Manager.
Finally, the ACE Mentor Program of Baltimore is again involving nearly 200 students from 13 area schools in its 15-week hands-on workshop that is conducted by more than 100 mentors from 50 local architecture, engineering and construction firms.
Many students entering the program are already interested in pursuing a career in the AEC fields. The workshops and exposure to myriad professionals, however, both deepens their knowledge of career options and sometimes refines their choices.
Shirey, who is also the Affiliate Director of the ACE program, recounts the example of one student who entered the program eager to become an architect. Over the course of 15 weeks, the boy realized that he didn’t love the design process. Exposure to other ACE mentors, however, enlightened and excited him about the work of project managers. With the aid of an ACE scholarship, he enrolled in a college program for construction management.
Member News: March 2023
Harkins projects wins national 55+ housing award
Brightview Fair Oaks – a 170-unit development built by Harkins Builders – has won Silver in the National Association of Home Builders Best of 55+ Housing Awards.
The award announcement described the Northern Virginia facility, which includes independent living, assisted living and memory care units, as “a prime example of how an ambitious client and imaginative design can create something special out of basic ingredients.”
The craftsman-style facility features resort-style amenities, including five dining venues, a theatre, large art studio, hobby lab/maker space, salon, library, fitness center and extensive outdoor amenities. Yet the project team contained costs by making strategic materials choices, said Casey Hughes, Vice President of Senior Living at Harkins Builders. The team restricted high-end finishes to high-visibility, high-use areas. For example, the building’s exterior features large, timber beams but the design concentrated the use of expensive materials to areas near the ground floor and the entrances.
The design also made optimal use of space.
Brightview Fair Oaks “includes all of these different rooms – a dining room, a pub, a café, a games room and a serving kitchen where they hold cooking classes – that they wanted to function as separate spaces. But when they hold big events, they wanted all of those rooms to function as one big meeting space,” Hughes said. “Because of that, everything had to be really open. We had to mix in a bunch of structural steel to get really wide spans so the rooms could open up to one big space. The mechanical systems also had to be designed to handle a huge capacity.”
Harkins Builders, which has completed nearly 20 developments for Brightview, served as Construction Manager at Risk on the project. It got involved in planning for Fair Oaks four years before construction began and provided guidance on design, material choices and constructability.
Johnson Controls launches academy to ease labor shortage
Faced with persistent workforce shortages, Johnson Controls has partnered with Lincoln Tech to create the Johnson Controls Academy – a six-week, intensive training in Columbia, Md. that equips graduates to begin working as security installers and fire service technicians.
“Lincoln Tech is a great school,” said John Prusak, General Manager at Johnson Controls in Maryland. “Their [12-month] electrical curriculum gives students really solid basics. We have been hiring Lincoln Tech grads into our security, fire and HVAC businesses previously so we know their core strengths.”
Johnson Controls has hired about 300 Lincoln Tech graduates since the two companies forged a partnership in 2018. At that time, Johnson Controls began placing some of its equipment in 13 Lincoln Tech campuses, including one in Columbia, to provide students with experience on its products.
The newly launched Johnson Controls Academy builds on that partnership. The six-week program provides specialized – and free – training to select Lincoln Tech graduates or other adult learners with basic aptitude for and knowledge of electrical systems. Lincoln Tech recruits, pre-screens and interviews candidates, then proposes a slate of potential students for each class. Johnson Controls hires selected students before class begins, puts them on payroll, covers their training and housing expenses during the Academy, then assists with relocation expenses as they are assigned to a Johnson Controls office somewhere around the country.
The initiative provides “a way for us to strategically build a pipeline of skilled trade technicians ready to enter the workforce,” said Alison Neuman, Program Manager of Workforce Development for Johnson Controls North America.
Johnson Controls expects to hire at least 130 Academy graduates annually. During their first year of employment, the company provides each new hire with a “retention coach” who meets the employee monthly to address any questions and help them start a career inside Johnson Controls.
“Johnson Controls leaders are so busy and new technicians need a little more attention,” Neuman said. “Having a retention specialist regularly talking with new employees provides that one-on-one contact that is critical.”
Volunteers rally to build construction training center in Baltimore
After nearly two years of planning, problem-solving, chasing permits and pulling together all the resources needed for an unconventional development, the Safe Alternative Foundation for Education and multiple BC&E member companies broke ground on the new Safe Center in Baltimore in February.
Located on South Payson Street in one of Baltimore’s most underserved communities, the 3,200-square-foot Safe Center will include a woodshop and classroom space, and provide National Center for Construction Education and Research (NCCER) accredited training programs in several construction trades.
Safe Alternative Founder and Executive Director Van Brooks estimates the center will provide high-quality and hands-on training to about 40 middle school and high school students annually, as well as another 36 to 48 young adults who are looking to start careers in the construction industry.
Brooks also plans to purchase and renovate vacant rowhomes nearby both to provide students with construction experience and generate more investment in the community.
“I know this will be a game changer,” said Brooks. “We are creating a model that can be duplicated around Baltimore City and in other cities to provide construction trades training.”
The nature and location of the center, he said, will help many young people in the area overcome longstanding barriers to pursuing careers in construction. Those barriers include lack of educational facilities, affordable training, transportation, Internet access, industry contacts and other challenges.
“Truthfully, I hate seeing my community and other communities like it go without resources and opportunities,” Brooks said. “What motivates me is I know if you give members of my community an opportunity and some support, they will do well… There is a ton of construction happening in the city. We want to have people trained and prepared to take advantage of opportunities in construction.”
That mission – combined with Safe Alternative’s track record of providing construction trades education to middle schoolers – inspired BC&E Foundation Board Member John Stahl and several BC&E member companies to donate expertise and resources to help build the Safe Center.
From the start, the project – which would involve renovating three vacant rowhomes, including one that had been converted into a carwash – faced distinct challenges.
The buildings were suffering from age and neglect. Several floors were not level and the ground floor of the former carwash had been sloped to allow water to drain. The second-story floors of the buildings did not align because the upper floor of the middle house had been pushed higher to accommodate the high bay of the carwash. The initial group of BC&E members who visited the site, feared the only option was to tear the rowhomes down.
“The property was in really bad shape and the first impressions were that they would have to be replaced because there were not going to be safe,” said Scott Moir, an Associate at GWWO Architects. “But because of budget concerns, tearing down and starting over would have forced them to bring in modular classrooms or construction trailers and operate inside those instead.”
A specialist in educational architecture, Moir wanted to find another option because “everyone deserves a nice space to learn in… We surveyed everything, got pictures and measurements, modeled it and brought in a structural engineer to make some observations. We concluded that it would be a very challenging renovation but we could make it work without tearing down buildings.”
Based on GWWO’s conceptual design, Stahl began providing project management services and organizing the efforts of six additional donor companies: The Whiting-Turner Contracting Company, Bunting Door and Hardware, Excell Concrete, Hatzel & Buehler, Floors Etc. and Temp Air Company.
Due to the nature of the renovation and its partly volunteer project team, securing permits became especially challenging and time-consuming. Whiting-Turner, which had been volunteering as a consultant on the project, “got a permit expediter involved who has done a lot of work for us,” said John Lawrence, Project Manager. “She was able to identify holes in the documentation, fill in that information and – with her knowledge of permitting processes and a lot of contacts at the city – was able to push through and get the permits.”
Meanwhile, other donor companies worked out the details of the center’s design and construction plan.
“There were people volunteering to supply and install materials for this project – concrete, flooring, doors, windows and more – and doing it gratis or at severely discounted rates,” Stahl said. “They also worked out details for the center so that we could create the best, most workable space possible for learning.”
For example, Bunting Door and Hardware proposed altering the design to install more tightly sealed doors to prevent noise from the woodshop from disrupting work in adjacent classrooms.
Some BC&E member companies have already discussed helping with training programs at the Safe Center once construction is complete later this year, Stahl said.
“This is the beauty of the Building Congress,” he said. “I am able to reach out and get this kind of help from so many companies. The construction industry has been good to all of us and people want to give back. They are inspired by Van, they know he is capable of bringing this development to life in a tough, tough area and helping create opportunities for people in that neighborhood. We will help train people there and maybe they will come work for us.”
The donations and volunteer efforts of the BC&E companies were pivotal to making the Safe Center project happen, Brooks said.
“I definitely want to thank those who stepped up and supported us through this long process,” he said. “Their support never waivered. I really have to give a shout-out to John Stahl. He has really been the glue that brought this project together. When I got frustrated, he would step in and say, I have someone who can help and we can make this happen. He took this project on like it was his own.”
Model Behavior
Plywood and digital mockups boost efficiency
The task was to design and build a state-of-the-art, $150 million circuit courthouse for Howard County. Yet amid the project’s sophisticated requirements and planning processes, one rudimentary practice – the construction of a plywood model – helped team members improve the design and streamline construction.
“It was a really eye-opening experience for our team,” said Timothy Campbell, Project Executive with Clark Construction Group.
After the courthouse’s design was completed, Clark built full-size, plywood models of two key rooms – the largest courtroom planned for the building and a standard courtroom that would be repeated several times in the new courthouse. Then Clark arranged for more than 40 court staff – including judges, prosecutors, court reporters, bailiffs and others – to gather inside the models, replicate their typical trial activities and identify any issues they had with the designs.
The exercise “revealed things – functional issues for the staff – that a project team would probably never think of and design issues that the court staff probably wouldn’t appreciate if they were just looking at a rendering of the design,” Campbell said.
A great model – whether it is physical or digital – can avert a wealth of design and construction issues. Increasingly user-friendly technologies are enabling more companies and clients to use digital models while physical models are still enabling project teams to refine designs for facilities that must meet high-performance standards.
For the courthouse, the issues included optimizing sightlines among the judge, jury, lawyers and witnesses, adjusting the heights of desks and benches so that paperwork and evidence could be easily passed, and ensuring that bailiffs could easily move people (jurors, witnesses, defendants, etc.) in and out of the courtroom.
After collecting feedback from court staff, Clark renovated the models and repeated the exercise. The result, Campbell said, was that when the courthouse opened, staff reported that the courtrooms functioned as they hoped without any further revisions.
Physical models, Campbell said, “are still the recognized best practice for projects that have to support a lot of human interaction, such as courtrooms, operating rooms, laboratories and doctors’ offices.”
For other projects, 3D digital models, digital videos of designs and virtual reality models are powerful tools for identifying issues or missing design specifications, and communicating issues to clients and project partners, said Andrea Zabawa, Manager of Virtual Design and Construction for Clark Construction Group.
“Flying through a model on your computer is one thing,” she said. “Putting on a VR headset and physically being in the space gives you such a better sense of scale, how tight the space is and you catch a lot of things that might not notice just flying through a model. On one project, we realized there weren’t any access panels anywhere in the drawings and that wasn’t caught just by doing the model.”
Taking the time to complete models – both digital and physical – can produce efficiency gains, especially on projects that repeat elements. Zabawa pointed to the example of Reston Town Center NXT. Clark Construction did digital and physical mockups of the core bathrooms for two of the project’s office towers.
“As a result, we ended up writing nearly a dozen RFIs because we were missing dimensions and other information we needed to build out that space,” she said. “Doing virtual mockups ahead of physical mockups ahead of construction saved the team plenty of time and avoided a lot of headaches. Those towers are over 20 stories tall so those bathrooms are repeated 40 times. If you have an issue with one bathroom, you have an issue with 40.”
Increasingly, digital models are helping companies successfully resolve design issues with clients, such as the need to lower a ceiling to accommodate mechanical and electrical installations.
“People always want to have high ceilings and a feeling of open space, so they don’t want to hear a contractor say we need to take away an inch or two of ceiling height,” Zabawa said. “Having a 3D model and being able to put the end-user on the floor below the ceiling while you move it up and down helps them see the real impact of a change and often realize that the space still feels fine.”
Advances in technology are making it easier for companies to generate digital models and for clients to navigate them.
Penza Bailey Architects, a studio of Prime AE, has long used Revit to create 3D, black-and-white renderings for clients. However, a Revit add-on, Enscape, has enabled designers to quickly and easily generate very realistic models, said Leah Penza, Architect.
“It has been very helpful for both clients’ visualization and our own,” Penza said. “You get to see things beyond the black-and-white world of a rendering. It is easier to feel the scale of the space and the materiality of the design. If the client requests a change, you can change the model right away and they can see the impact.”
Models help clients assess conditions that can be challenging to fully understand in a rendering, such as the impact of sloped, dormer ceilings on the spaciousness of a room.
With current software, “you can even export a portion of a model and send it to your client,” Penza said. “They don’t need to own the program. They can just access it online and walk around the model on their own and take their time studying the space.”
Analysts gauge strengths and risks of 2023 economy
“Fasten your seatbelts. We have begun our descent.”
With that line, Andrew Bauer, Vice President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, kicked off the 2023 Economic Outlook in the latest BC&E Construction Blueprint Series webinar.
Economy watchers are struggling to predict how the next year will impact American companies, workers and consumers. Many forecasts project the U.S. could slide into a recession this year as the country grapples with lagging GDP numbers and escalating interest rates. At the same time, however, unemployment has hit a 50-year low, inflation has eased slightly and the economy will soon start receiving large infusions of capital from the federal infrastructure package and CHIPS act.
At February’s Construction Blueprint webinar, Bauer and three representatives of MacKenzie Capital —President John Black, Vice President Brendan Harman and Analyst Jack Ward — offered their best analysis and insights. The session was moderated by Annette Walter, CEO and President of Timber Industries.
Recessions, Bauer said, are typically triggered by an unanticipated situation that creates a serious imbalance in one sector of the economy, such as the subprime lending crisis in 2008-09 or the dot-com bust in 2001.
“When you think about 2023 and are we going to have a recession, it is really difficult to see where we have the overextension, where there is a supply-demand imbalance,” he said. “That’s not to say there aren’t a lot of risks in this economy, but this would be the most forecasted and telegraphed recession in U.S. economic history. My expectations are for things to be slow this year but, absent some other external shock, I think we could get through without a recession.”
Bauer pointed to several factors that could produce a slow but solid economy in 2023. Growth in consumer spending, which accounts for two-thirds of the U.S. economy, remained solid in 2022 at nearly 2 percent and, so far, shows no indication of tapering off in 2023. The U.S. labor market grew by 200,000 to 300,000 jobs each month in the second half of 2022 and created more than 500,000 jobs this January.
Monthly new job numbers of 150,000 to 200,000 are considered a benchmark of a good economy so recent job creation “is a strong indication that the economy is still doing quite solidly,” Bauer said.
Not every economic indicator is rosy, however, and the current economy is not an easy or low-risk environment.
The Personal Consumption Expenditure (PCE), an inflation metric, has fallen from its peak of 6.3 percent last September to 5 percent in December. However, that figure is still well above the 2 percent inflation rate that has long been a standard component of a robust U.S. economy. Webinar panelists agreed that the speed with which the United States brings inflation back down to 2 percent will profoundly influence the health of the overall economy.
Meanwhile, interest rates constitute another current difficulty and future risk. The prime rate climbed rapidly and unexpectedly from 2.5 percent a year ago to 7.5 percent currently, and the Federal Reserve Board is signaling that further rate hikes will be required this year, largely to offset the economic impact of the strong labor market and contain inflation. The high – and climbing – cost of capital has already started impacting developers’ decisions on whether to move forward with construction projects.
“This is not like the last recession with respect to lack of liquidity in the marketplace. There is still money out there for good projects,” Black said. “But the rising interest rate environment is unprecedented, including the speed of the increases that have occurred over the last 12 months… Someone told me a long time ago that in real estate it is either fear or greed. We had greed for a long time in the low-interest-rate environment. It is going back to fear winning out over greed.”
“The rapid increase in the cost of capital has hit all types of funding up and down the capital stack,” Harman said. “That has given some developers pause because some projects don’t work [financially] anymore.”
The impact of those rate hikes was seen in late 2022, he said. Typically, the number of development deals and total transaction value experiences a “tremendous increase” in the fourth quarter of the year. That big increase did not happen in Q4 2022.
“This was a softening due to interest rates that peaked in the third quarter,” Harman said. “People are trying to figure out how to make capitalization work for their projects. We think this softening is going to continue into 2023.”
The funding challenge, however, is not impacting all construction projects equally.
“I have not seen a market this disjointed – both on a capital and a property level – since the 1980s,” Black said.
Although retail generally has struggled since the beginning of the pandemic, grocery-anchored retail is one of the top-performing assets currently, according to MacKenzie Capital. The hotel sector is “bifurcated” with very high-end hotels and resorts exceeding their pre-pandemic performance. The strong multi-family and industrial markets have begun to show signs of weakening. Office projects have become very difficult to finance, but developers are seeing strong markets for specialty products, including self-storage facilities, life science and laboratory spaces, and marinas.
Member News: February 2023
BC&E Foundation revives, expands activities
After four years of serving on the BC&E Foundation board, Curtis Dalsimer is looking forward to expanding the Foundation’s outreach and impact.
“It was a tough couple of years with the pandemic, but I was impressed with the amount of outreach the Foundation continued to do with different organizations and school programs, and how important the Foundation obviously had become to those programs,” said Dalsimer, the new president of the BC&E Foundation board and Preconstruction and Estimating Manager at Wohlsen Construction.
As pandemic limitations ease, the Foundation is now reviving and increasing its work. For the first time since 2019, the Foundation will hold its Builders-In-Training (BIT) Workshop in March. During the half-day event, BC&E member companies will provide hands-on training sessions to 9th and 10th grade students from area schools.
The Foundation is redesigning its annual fundraising event.
“It used to be a formal gala and we might get 100 to 125 people. We’re looking to expand attendance by booking an outdoor venue, making it less formal and lowering the price,” he said.
The Foundation has also established several new committees focused on outreach, fundraising and grants to educational programs, the BIT workshop and an exploratory committee to identify opportunities to connect high school and college graduates with jobs at member companies. Those organizing efforts are already attracting new volunteers to the Foundation.
“Everyone in our industry realizes there is a real need for workforce development and the mission of the Foundation is to build the industry’s future workforce. People are realizing they need to get involved to work on this challenge,” Dalsimer said.
Dalsimer is joined on the board by Treasurer John Stup of LokTek, LLC; Secretary Tim Sauter of Hatzel & Beuhler, Inc.; and Directors Ted Bowes, Excell Concrete Construction; Krista Hickman, KatzAbosch; Henry J. Knott IV, Henry J. Knott Masonry, Inc.; Gregory Malcolm, IronShore Contracting. Inc.; John Stahl, Swirnow Building Systems; Chris van Swol, the Whiting-Turner Contracting Company and Matt Verderamo, Alliance Exterior Construction.
Training the next all-star electricians
Hirsch Electric has expanded its training program to its new Beltsville office.
Started two years ago at the company’s headquarters in Baltimore, the inhouse training program is designed to help new hires with little to no construction experience quickly build solid skills. The Beginner 1,2 and 3 classes cover basic tool skills, electrical knowledge, extensive safety information and hands-on instruction on how to properly and efficiently complete tasks such as installing cable, conduit and electrical boxes.
Three Intermediate classes teach students about multiple types of wiring tasks, electrical controls and more advanced electrical theory and critical thinking skills. The classes are one day each and students typically advance to the next class every four to five weeks. In between classes, the instructor or a project manager visit students on construction sites, where they work as helpers or apprentices, to assess how well they are retaining the lessons and building their skills.
“We see the need in the industry for this kind of training program,” said Sean Daniels, Division Manager. “We decided the way to deal with the labor shortage is to find young, determined, eager guys and teach them what they need to learn so that in the next couple of years, they will be ready to become the next all-star electricians that we need.”
The training program — which gives young workers direct access to an instructor, supervisors and Hirsch executives — provides students with opportunities to ask questions, build their confidence on jobsites and enables them to get promotions, pay raises and bonuses fairly quickly, Daniels said.
It also addresses a daily challenge on construction sites.
“The average jobsite is moving a thousand miles an hour because everyone is in a hurry to get jobs done,” Daniels said. “We need good helpers and apprentices to take some stress off our foremen and mechanics. The training program provides helpers and apprentices with the skills they need to complete work properly. That helps the foremen and mechanics improve workflow and productivity.”
Project Profile: The National Aquarium, Baltimore
Scope of work: Reglazing of glass pyramid, installation of new interior and exterior lighting, misting system, catwalk, decking and bird wire
BC&E Member companies involved: Plano-Coudon Construction, Design Collective, Diversified Safety Services, IronShore Contracting, J.F. Fischer
Walking down Pier 3 in the predawn hours, Andrew Hooker prepared to complete a massive, high-profile and nerve-wracking installation.
A project executive with Plano-Coudon Construction, Hooker was overseeing extensive renovations to the glass pyramid at Baltimore’s National Aquarium. To replace the pyramid’s 684 panes of glass, Plano-Coudon had to place a 400-ton crane at the end of the pier. Crews gathered at 4 am, assembled the crane in an adjacent parking lot then began walking it down the pier.
“There were nerves involved, but a lot of pre-planning went into this mobilization,” said Hooker. “We were moving a very heavy piece of equipment across brick pavers. We confirmed the pier was designed to support the weight of large fire trucks and capable of handling the weight of the crane. As the crane was walking down the pier, a fire truck happened to drive past on Pratt Street and the crane dwarfed it.”
The installation – including the attachment of the crane’s boom by a second crane positioned on the opposite side of the pier – went smoothly. But it wasn’t the only extraordinary challenge that Hooker, Superintendent John Allen and the rest of the project team had to overcome to complete the renovation.
Reglazing the pyramid required precise operation of cranes and close attention to weather.
“You had to be particularly careful about wind,” Hooker said. “Obviously, the crane couldn’t work in high wind. But even lower wind could cause the glass to blow and start spinning and potentially hit the structure and break.”
Meanwhile, installers worked on lifts as high as 185 feet and in the heat of the summer. Workers on the sloped section of the pyramid dealt with especially difficult working conditions.
“It’s a 45-degree slope so they worked in a very awkward, uncomfortable position,” Hooker said. “It also got super hot up there. Guys worked in temperatures well over 100 degrees on top of a hot roof. On the sloped section, they were constantly in the sun so we put some pop-up tents up there and tons of water so they could get a little relief.”
Despite those conditions, crews only cracked a single pane of glass out of the 684.
Inside the pyramid, crews devised novel solutions to logistical challenges.
Unable to erect scaffolding or employ a swing stage without removing vegetation from the Upland Tropical Rainforest exhibit, Plano-Coudon contracted The Crew Works – a rigging company that specializes in rigging for events in entertainment venues.
Crew Works not only installed the pyramid’s new bird wire but collaborated with other trades to help install a new misting system and interior lighting.
To preserve the rainforest exhibit, workers avoided or limited some construction processes inside the pyramid. Steelworkers prefabricated large sections of the new decking and catwalk to minimize welding onsite.
“But there wasn’t a freight elevator big enough to bring in those pieces,” Hooker said, so crews created rigging in a stairway and carried up pieces weighing several hundred pounds.
The final challenge of the project, however, was also the biggest surprise.
“The second nerve-wracking part was at the end of the job when they released the sloths back into the space,” Hooker said. “You expect a sloth to be slow. I expected them to just climb up in a tree, find their spot and lay there. But no. They were so excited. They were climbing like crazy all over the place and they instantly climbed onto the bird wire. We had put thousands of hog rings onto the bird wire to make sure it was tied together and taut, and installed stainless steel straps to hold it to the structure. I was so nervous. I thought if that bird wire doesn’t hold because sloths climb on it, I will never be allowed to work in Baltimore again.”
The wire held perfectly and the project team got one final satisfaction from the project.
“Seeing that the plan worked and the bird wire held and the sloths and other animals were so happy in their new space was pretty rewarding,” Hooker said. “I swear I saw a sloth smile. Even though it has three toes, it gave me a thumbs up.”
Member News: January 2023
Presenting the 2023 Board…
The Building Congress & Exchange welcomes new board member Schyler Bailey of Bowie & Jensen, LLC and two returning members to begin John Gregg of GWWO Architects and Greg Meyer of Wohlsen Construction, who will each serve a three-year term.
They join the 16-year board led by President, Michael Martin of Live Green Landscape Associates, LLC; Vice President Ted Bowes of Excell Concrete Construction, LLC; TreasurerRick Scheetz of Gray & Son, Inc., Secretary Jeff Hossfeld of The Whiting-Turner Contracting Company and Member At Large Thomas Koch of Plano-Coudon Construction.
The remaining board includes: Marianne Crampton, MK Consulting Engineers, LLC; Jonathan Goetz, Oak Contracting; Fred Marino, Design Collective, Inc.; Doug McGinnis, Bunting Door and Hardware Co., Inc.; R. Nelson Oster, HMS Insurance Associates, Inc.; Mark Rich, Baltimore Fabrication; Dennis Walsh, Floors Etc and Immediate Past President Wayne Matheu, Matheu & Associates.
BC&E welcomes five new members
Based in Owings Mills, Clearview Group is an accounting and consulting firm that provides services of a national organization with the personalized attention of a local company. Its services cover a range of business operations, including accounting and finance, taxes, risk and transaction advice, technology and cybersecurity.
Established in 1992, EC Roofing and Home Services Direct provides exterior home improvements. Located in Catonsville, the family-owned company specializes in roofing, seamless gutters and installation and replacement of siding and windows.
Hoffberger Moving Services is an independent, woman-owned, commercial moving and storage company, serving clients in the Baltimore-Washington area and points throughout the U.S. Hoffberger specializes in serving hospitals, medical facilities, research facilities, corporate offices, government services, libraries, warehouses and fine arts facilities and museums.
Pennsylvania-based Orrstown Bank, with five locations in Maryland, provides a full range of commercial, consumer, and wealth management services to our clients.
Established 57 years ago as a retailer of chandeliers and table lamps for residential clientele, Valley Lighting has grown to become a national leader in commercial lighting and shading distribution. Valley Lighting is committed to top-tier services and quality projects, and specializes in large-scale commercial projects.
Partner Upgrades
Thank you to the following member companies that have become partners for 2023: Bronze Partners Floors Etc and Clearview Group, LLC; Former Bronze Partner North Point Builders of Maryland, LLC upgraded to a Silver Partner.
HMS Insurance acquired by New York firm
HMS Insurance Associates, Inc., one of the nation’s largest independent agencies and a long-time BC&E member and partner, has been acquired by the Marsh McLennan Agency (MMA) of White Plains, NY.
“We are excited to join the MMA family given the alignment we share in our approach to customer service, employee engagement, and carrier partnership,” said Gary Berger, President of HMS. “This is an opportunity to continue to enhance our capabilities and deepen our industry relationships, as well as augment the training and career development resources available to colleagues, in turn equipping them to best meet client needs.”
With 9,500 colleagues and 170 offices across North America, MMA provides business insurance, employee health & benefits, retirement and private client insurance solutions to organizations and individuals. MMA is a subsidiary of Marsh, the world’s leading insurance broker and risk advisor with over 45,000 colleagues in more than 130 countries.
All of HMS’s more than 120 employees, including Berger, will join MMA and continue to work out of the company’s Hunt Valley, Maryland office.
“The MMA goal has always been to partner with the best firms and together build a unique experience for colleagues and clients,” said John Stanchina, CEO of MMA’s Mid-Atlantic region. “With exceptional leadership, client satisfaction, long-term client retention and decades of profitable growth, we are delighted to bring the HMS team on board.”