Building retrofits boost energy efficiency and sustainability

Whether it’s driven by sustainability goals, regulatory requirements or a simple need to reduce energy costs, a growing number of property owners are looking to improve the energy performance of their buildings.

While financing those projects is a perennial challenge, new approaches to building management and renovation, emerging technologies within the MEP world, and shifting thought leadership about sustainability are providing avenues to meet clients’ needs.

Retro-commissioning

Inefficient and even erratic operations within buildings that were designed to be highly efficient is not a new thing.

When Bala Consulting Engineers assess building performance at a client’s property, they regularly uncover “hand-o-matic” issues with MEP systems, said John Robinson, Director of Commissioning. “A tenant in the building may have complained about the temperature so the facilities staff did an override and that piece of equipment has been running at higher speed for however long, wasting money instead of going back to its automated programming.”

Retro-commissioning can ferret out and correct those misalignments and accomplish much more. It can identify delayed or neglected maintenance that is impacting the performance or efficiency of building systems and shortening the lifespan of equipment. And it can go beyond resetting a building to original performance and efficiency levels to improve on those levels.

“We now have the tools, the data and the analytics to accomplish greater efficiency,” said Michael Westerlund of Johnson Controls Inc. “Analytics are creating feedback loops of data that are timely and continuous so you can be constantly monitoring and adjusting building operations.”

In newer building systems, those analytics can finetune operating sequences to match real-time occupancy levels, flexible work schedules and changing uses. The analytics can also flag minor equipment issues that can diminish efficiency and shorten equipment lifespan.

“This not only helps owners maintain energy and system efficiency, it also helps service technicians very quickly identify root causes of problems. This generates significant operational savings,” Westerlund said.

The addition of AI to the analytics systems, he added, can further increase the benefits. For example, AI-enabled systems can identify and even anticipate maintenance issues and propose scenarios for addressing them. Through continuous learning and adaptation, the AI model can refine its predictions based on real-world outcomes, continuously improving its accuracy and effectiveness over time. This continuous learning loop ensures that the predictive maintenance system remains highly effective even as building conditions and equipment evolve.

More clients are opting to contract companies to do ongoing or continuous commissioning of buildings.

At the same time, retro- and continuous commissioning, with the power of data and analytics, is teac

“Sometimes, the complexity of control systems can become a problem,” said James Gardler, Director of MEP Operations at Bala Consulting Engineers.

Facilities staff may have insufficient knowledge to make needed and effective changes to the systems, and to reverse overrides.

Consequently, engineering companies are both improving their systems for initial and ongoing training of facilities staff and adding functions to systems to make them more operator-friendly, such as a built-in process to automatically restore normal operations.

Portfolio-wide retrofits

To achieve major energy efficiency improvements or sustainability goals, especially in older buildings, some owners are opting for deep energy retrofits and not just on a one-off basis, said Julia Gisewite, Chief Sustainability Officer at Turner Construction Company.

“We have clients who will ask us to look at their entire portfolio of buildings and develop a plan to decarbonize the portfolio rather than looking at one building at a time,” Gisewite said. “That enables everyone to think strategically about procurement, to look across their entire pro forma and how they are spending money, identify priorities, and create a phased plan for decarbonization over multiple years.”

That approach enables companies to achieve some economies of scale in equipment and service purchases. It also helps clients to time retrofits to meet requirements of new Building Energy Performance Standards (BEPS) which are being adopted in many regions.

At James Posey Associates, engineers have recently worked on multi-building energy performance and retrofit analyses on properties ranging from laboratory and manufacturing spaces for life sciences companies to academic campuses.

Those broad studies have helped clients get a sharper understanding of what will be required to meet their own energy efficiency/sustainability goals or upcoming government regulations, said Sean Soboloski, an engineer specializing in energy and sustainability at James Posey.

Analysis of a selection of buildings on one university campus, for example, provided insights on what the client would need to do in the short term and longer term to meet BEPS requirements.

“One of the biggest takeaways from the study is that sub-metering is going to be critically important in dealing with BEPS,” Soboloski said.

Certain uses, such as commercial kitchens, are exempt from BEPS restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions on site. Consequently, installing sub-metering in an academic building that also includes a food hall would be key to lowering and meeting that building’s BEPS requirements, he said.

Other recommended short-term actions, he said, included retro-commissioning campus buildings to better monitor occupancy and adjust HVAC operations accordingly and completing a building envelope commissioning to lower energy loss.

However, Soboloski noted that longer term improvements for that university, like many institutional clients, include replacing HVAC, electrical and back-up power systems, many of which have already exceeded their expected lifespan.

New concepts in efficiency

For clients who are wrestling with the high cost of improving their energy systems, thought leaders in sustainable building are offering some new options.

One is a “partial electrification” solution.

“Partial electrification could be huge and I hope it gets more attention in the engineering practice,” said Colin Schless, Director of Client Decarbonization Strategy at Turner Construction Company.

Schless points to a study by the Berkely Center for the Built Environment which concluded that building MEP systems run at 20 percent of capacity for 80 to 90 percent of the year and only run at higher capacities during high-demand periods.

“So, if you electrify 20 percent of that plant, that’s going to cover 80 to 90 percent of emissions,” Schless said.

Partial electrification would deliver major decarbonization gains while dramatically cutting the cost of installing new equipment, Schless said. Also, “by just electrifying 20 percent, you’re not likely to impact your electrical load so you don’t need to do electrical service upgrades to the building, which are costly.”

Another emerging option is high-lift heat pumps.

The obstacle to installing heat pumps in an existing building is “most buildings have a boiler that uses pretty hot water – 170 to 180 degrees,” Schless said.

Heat pumps typically deliver 120-degree water. Accommodating that temperature water in an existing building “would mean ripping out radiators, ripping coils out of your air handling units and making some architectural improvements. It’s a really intensive project,” he said.

The high-lift heat pump leverages technology typically used in the food and beverage and oil and gas industries to create a solution for buildings. The two-stage heat pump brings water to 120 degrees in the first stage and raises it to 180 to 200 degrees in the second stage, making it compatible with equipment installed in many buildings.

Builders embrace new ways to support mental wellbeing

The mental health challenges facing construction workers and construction companies are enormous and known. Construction has the highest suicide rate of any industry in America, one of the highest rates of opioid misuse and overdose, and ample cases of stress, burnout, anxiety and other mental wellness challenges.

So what can companies do on a day-in, day-out basis to support their employees mental wellbeing?

Clark Construction Group has embarked on an array of mental health initiatives.
A supporter of the National Construction Suicide Prevention Week, Clark is “training leaders in Forefront Suicide Prevention L.E.A.R.N. technique, a five-step process to recognize, engage and support individuals in crisis,” said Greg Colevas, Corporate Safety Director. “We recently introduced Mental Health First Aid training to deepen employees understanding of mental illness and suicide prevention.”

More construction companies “are training their employees on how to be that first line of support by noticing when their co-workers are struggling,” said Jennifer Dewees, President of the Maryland Center for Construction Education & Innovation (MCCEI).

Training programs offered by the Center for Prevention of Construction Suicide and other organizations help individuals recognize the warning signs that a co-worker is struggling.

“They may start showing up late to work or missing time or making mistakes that they normally wouldn’t make,” Dewees said. Trainees are taught that “when you see those kinds of behaviors in an employee, don’t automatically penalize them. Figure out why this is happening because there is always a reason why.”

Some companies, she added, have trained people to help individuals find a therapist and access mental health services that are affordable and convenient. The challenges that people often face in accessing those services can be enough to convince a person suffering from addiction, depression or other issues to cease seeking any help.

Through years of efforts to build awareness of mental health issues and create a supportive environment for anyone who is struggling, Clark has learning that the best thing a company can do is simply “talk about it,” Colevas said. “Remove the natural tendency for this topic to be taboo and approach from a place of openness, caring and respect. Creating opportunities for open, two-way conversations with our people, especially our craft workers on our projects, has been incredibly impactful. We’ve been continually surprised that given the opportunity to talk about their mental health, people will want to tell their stories and what has impacted them.”

“Mental health isn’t just about your mental state but caring for your overall health. That is where our wellness program comes in,” said Corinne Burrows, Assistant Director of Human Resources at Gray & Son.

That program encourages employees to complete an annual physical with their primary care physician “which includes time to address mental health concerns,” Burrows said.

Company benefits include an employee assistance program (EAP) that provides mental health and counselling services as well as assistance with family caregiving, legal services and financial services; a telehealth service that makes mental health services more available at convenient times; and a consulting service for managers who are seeking advice on how to handle situations affecting their employees.

Wohlsen Construction provides confidential and free counselling services through its EAP, wellness and physical activity programs through its health insurance, an executive coach service to help team members develop better management strategies in a demanding business, and training sessions on Emotional Intelligence “which helps team members learn how to navigate the stress on the job and manage emotions under pressure,” said Lisa Murray, Director of Learning and Development.

The company encourages employees “to use their paid time off days when they need a mental break and, in most recent years, increased the total number of paid time off days per year,” Murray said.

Wohlsen also changed its EAP provider “to add new features, like an app, so team members can get texting support and a 24/7 hotline for any mental health crisis,” she said.

In addition to providing a supportive environment and an array of mental health services, companies need to coach employees on how to “take personal ownership of your own mental health,” said Matt Verderamo, Group Director at Well Built Construction Consulting. “It starts with helping people recognize that they have a say in how they function and they have an opportunity to prioritize their own mental health.”

Embracing that mindset can be very challenging in a high-pressure, deadline-driven, construction environment. But Verderamo insists it is possible and essential to the health of the individual and the company.

“Our brains are really good at finding evidence to support the things we believe,” he said. “So, if we believe there is no opportunity in the day to take a mental health break – to take a 15-minute walk and not look at our e-mail – then we will make sure that’s true. But if we believe that we have the opportunity to take care of ourselves every day, it’s amazing how you’ll find the moments to tend to your own wellness.”

In fact, Verderamo advises construction companies and workers that they can achieve bigger wellness benefits by “working those small moments into your day rather than trying to overhaul your work life.”

Project Profile: Perkins Square

Redeveloping an entire neighborhood was bound to be an exceptionally complex undertaking.

For companies involved in the Perkins Square project those complexities have included demolishing the 12-block site of the 1940s Perkins Homes development and executing a masterplan that includes 1,346 affordable apartments and townhomes, 500 market-rate residential units, small-scale retail, a large public park and a new public school.

The plan also requires builders to deliver a high-quality product: apartment buildings and townhouse clusters that each have distinctive designs and attractive streets with heightened visibility so that Perkins Square could blend well with the adjacent neighborhood of Harbor East.

Harkins Builders embraced those challenges for two portions of the multi-phased projects.

For Phase 2, Harkins constructed four blocks of townhouses containing a total of 28 homes; a four-story, slab-on-grade apartment building containing 61 units; and another 67-unit, podium-style apartment building that includes parking beneath the building and in a covered garage. All the residential units were affordable housing, tailored to several different income levels.

The apartments and townhomes included “a lot of brick façade, solid-surface countertops and some nice finishes that are more reminiscent of market-rate homes than what you might expect in affordable housing,” said Greg Pearson, who served as Senior Project Manager for Harkins on the Perkins project.

The buildings were also highly efficient and Energy Star rated.

For the Developers Agreement work (i.e. the city infrastructure improvements that developers agreed to make in the course of the project), Harkins completed some site prep and utility work, and installed curb and gutter, bus lanes, tree planters and pavers along two streets.

For Harkins which has a long history in building high-quality affordable housing, meeting the design and quality requirements of the project was not a challenge, Mark Kelehan, Vice President in charge of affordable housing projects.

The complexity of the Perkins Square project, however, did present some challenges. Complex phasing meant Harkins had to frequently coordinate work with project teams from other phases to avoid any obstacles to everyone’s progress and to ensure that different phases of buildings which butt up against each other in some cases, were perfectly aligned.

The developments’ large stakeholder group – which includes the Housing Authority of Baltimore City, the City of Baltimore, Beatty Development and Missouri-based McCormack Barron Salzaar – also made coordination with stakeholders more complicated and required contractors to master new processes of billing work.

But Kelehan, who has worked construction projects for Harkins for 37 years, said the result is proving to be remarkable.

“There was a lot of thought and detail put into the plan for this property,” he said. “It has been a tough section of town, called the donut hole, that’s surrounded by major things, like Johns Hopkins, Little Italy and Harbor East. So, they really wanted to make sure this development would stand out and stand the test of time.”

BC&E welcomes three new members

Cap Ex Advisory Group provides comprehensive support to owners of capital projects, ranging in size, type, and complexity. It supplies project leadership, financial guidance and strategic thinking. www.capexadvisory.com

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Carpet Fair Inc. dba Next Day Floors delivers flooring solutions to a multitude to private sector and government clients throughout Maryland, Washington DC, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.
www.carpetfairflooring.com

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Fidelity Mechanical Services provides HVAC/mechanical design, installation and service in the Mid-Atlantic region. Fidelity Mechanical serves some of the nation’s leading developers, property managers, mission-critical facilities and Fortune 500 companies.
www.fidelitymechanicalservices.com

Rec center projects deliver broader amenities, more beautiful buildings

Gone are the days when a community recreation center was a basic building, a gym and a ballfield.

Today’s rec center projects involve a mix of high-quality athletic facilities with space for creative activities, high-tech activities, public meetings, performances, food preparation and support services. They feature artful facades, welcoming interiors, high-performance systems and custom designs. Yet they are still delivered with limited budgets, broad stakeholder groups and often on distressed sites.

They are projects that require a high level of ingenuity but deliver big benefits to the communities they serve.

Last fall, AIA Maryland named the Middle Branch Fitness and Wellness Center as the 2024 Public Building of the Year while AIA Baltimore named the center as winner of its Social Equity Award. The project team included BC&E members Alliance Exterior Construction, GWWO Architects, Hatzel & Buehler, Ironshore Contracting, MK Consulting Engineers and The Whiting-Turner Contracting Company.

Located on a former brownfield site, the center was designed to serve the distinct needs of the Cherry Hill neighborhood. The light-filled building includes a gymnasium, natatorium, indoor splash pad, fitness area, multipurpose studio, maker space, classroom and rooms for support services. Outside, the grounds include a turf field for football, lacrosse and soccer as well as an event lawn and a connection to the 15-mile Gwynns Falls Trail.

To maximize the center’s facilities and usefulness, GWWO Architects designed the building to minimize non-program space and support multiple and changing uses in different areas.

For Middle Branch and a previous project (Cahill Fitness and Wellness Center in Baltimore), “we basically worked to eliminate circulation space,” said John Gregg, Principal at GWWO. “There aren’t corridors. The workout facilities are incorporated into the lobby and into the circulation. The multi-purpose spaces are made as multi-use and flexible as possible.”

The Cahill project team included BC&E members Cole Roofing, GWWO Architects and MK Consulting Engineers.

However, the success of those projects “is really not only about the design,” Gregg said. “It’s about engaging the community.”

Extensive community sessions educated the project team about residents’ distinct needs and desires for a recreation center. They also convinced some understandably skeptical residents of underserved communities that their voices would be heard and acted on.

Ultimately, that produced changes and unique additions to the designs. At Cahill, designers added a large auditorium/performance space.

At Middle Branch, “a bright red, indoor walking track became an integral part of the design,” Gregg said. “It’s something that facility has that other recreation centers in the city don’t. But residents said they needed a walking track and they wanted it to be indoors. We were able to address that community need without a significant increase in cost.”

Other recreation center projects present different needs and desires.

In West Baltimore, a proposal to renovate the aging and underutilized Hilton Recreation Center mushroomed into a major, multi-sponsor redevelopment plan.

It started nearly six years ago when former Ravens wide receiver Torrey Smith and his wife, Chanel, began looking for a site to provide youth programming through their LEVEL82 organization. Since then, the initiative has attracted support from city and state governments as well as a roster of local philanthropists.

Based on the nature and needs of the community, the plan expanded into a major renovation that will create a multi-purpose athletic field (which will also serve the adjacent Green Street Academy), a teen lounge, gymnasium, art room, technology room, tutoring spaces, indoor-outdoor community gathering spaces, and a kitchen that will intersect with Green Street Academy’s urban agriculture program and support food insecurity efforts in the area.

When the project team finishes construction later this year, the new facility will be known as the Baltimore Ravens Boys & Girls Club at Hilton Recreation Center. That team includes The Whiting-Turner Contracting Company, MK Consulting Engineers, Ariosa & Company, Windsor Electric and Design Collective.

“A unique feature of this recreation center is it will not only serve the community, but also support the adjacent high school,” said Scott Vieth, Principal at Design Collective.

And despite the major involvement of the Ravens, “it can’t be all about sports,” said Matt Herbert, Principal at Design Collective. “It has to support the kids and the community in many other activities.”

Consequently, the design went through many iterations to meet that broad range of activities and to ensure the space can adapt to changing uses in future, Herbert said.

Built-in technology and tech spaces, for example, are designed to support the TikTok generation and adapt to whatever comes next.

“There are rooms that are specially treated for sound and lighting for content generation for social media,” Herbert said. “People from the Boys & Girls Club and Green Street Academy recognized that this is another way for kids to find what they want to do and there are entrepreneurial aspects to it, and you can’t be closed minded about those activities.”

In the midst of the litany of program requirements, current recreation center projects are also delivering superb aesthetics.

The new Hilton center will include “a lot of color and branding and really cool graphics,” Vieth said. “But it is probably the gymnasium that is going to wow people the most. They are going to walk into this brand new, giant gymnasium that is flooded with daylight. There are windows up high but there are also big, lower windows that look out onto the field.”

In East Baltimore, a project team that includes BC&E members CAM Construction, Coastal Exteriors, GWWO Architects and MK Consulting Engineers is currently working on the renovation and expansion of the Chick Webb Memorial Recreation Center. Dedicated to legendary jazz drummer and bandleader, William Henry “Chick” Webb, the original 1947 facility was the first rec center and pool built for African Americans in the city.

The two-story addition plus renovated space will create a modern gymnasium, natatorium, fitness/wellness spaces, a makerspace, teen lounge, walking/running track, historical displays about Webb’s career and a “Founder’s Recording Studio.” It will also add a gorgeous building to the neighborhood.

To honor both the history of the building and Webb’s legacy, the new façade will feature modern limestone panels and fenestration that reflect the style of the original, mid-century building. The design of the entryway will evoke both the pattern of a musical scale and the palette of Webb’s colorful drum kits.

At Middle Branch, design decisions created beauty inside and out. The elevated, indoor, walking track was aligned with the building’s glazing to provide walkers with broad views of the neighborhood and the waterfront beyond.

Outside, the façade featured “a checkerboard pattern of Ultra-High Performance Concrete (UHPC) in shades of gray and beige that are bordered with red ACM panels to accentuate different architectural features,” said Skutch Montgomery, Director of Sales and Estimating at Alliance Exterior Construction.

Alliance, he added, has seen the rise in aesthetic standards for recreation centers.

“About 25 years ago, we built the original Essex Community College pool and we’re still really proud of that original project,” Montgomery said.

But a few years ago, Alliance Exterior Construction was part of the project team that transformed the building into the CCBC Wellness Center. That renovation and addition included UHPC rainscreen panels on the exterior.

“For the original Essex Community College Pool, we did a custom tapered seam with TPO roofing membrane to make it look like a standing seam roof and that was the extent of any flashiness,” he said. “For the new addition, we installed an angular roof and a canopy that juts out from the building and creates a very welcoming entry. And we installed a textured UHPC skin on the building that blends into the original brick. It’s gorgeous.”

Amid the drive to deliver more amenities and better aesthetics on limited budgets and pressing timelines, some recreation center projects are also embracing less than conventional building processes and materials, Plano-Coudon Construction is preparing to break ground in February on a 14,000-square-foot addition to the Bocek Recreation Center in Baltimore. The $11.1 million project will create a new indoor fitness area and gymnasium, add an outdoor basketball court and fitness area, and outfit the building with sustainable features, including rooftop solar.

“One of the most impressive aspects of this project is the design, fabrication and installation of the pre-engineered metal building (PEMB),” said Darryl Richardson, Project Executive with Plano Coudon. “PEMBs allow for a faster ground-up installation compared to traditional steel structures, making them an efficient solution for recreation center development.”

Port faces prospects of more cargo and two mega projects

Market trends and some proposed developments are raising hopes of more construction activity stemming from port operations.

In January, Tradepoint Atlantic launched into a public comment period for its plan to build at $1 billion container terminal on a 130-acre site on Coke Point. The joint venture, by Tradepoint Atlantic and Terminal Investment Limited, a subsidiary of Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC), could dramatically change the amount of cargo moving through Baltimore.

“This would be huge for Baltimore,” said Aaron Tomarchio, Tradepoint’s Executive Vice President of Corporate Affairs. “This would bring Baltimore up from number six in container capacity among East Coast ports to number three. Baltimore would be playing with the big boys and girls.”

For the construction industry, that could have several impacts.

If approved, construction of the container terminal could start by the end of this year and continue through to the first quarter of 2028, supporting approximately 1,100 construction jobs.

The new terminal, which is being designed to maximize the efficiency of container-handling operations, would attract more shipping to and from Baltimore by MSC (the largest shipping company in the world) and other companies, Tomarchio said.

That increased traffic would drive up demand for warehouse/distribution space.

Tradepoint Atlantic, which has already built 15 million square feet of Class A logistics facilities on its Sparrows Point property, has capacity to build another 6 million square feet of industrial property.

Increased port traffic would also likely spur “inland port projects,” such as other warehouse/distribution facilities along the I-95 corridor and nearby, Tomarchio said.

Port-related construction, however, already seems poised to experience some growth, independent of any decision about the Tradepoint container terminal.

WBCM Construction Services just landed a $9 million, 12-month contract to build a bulk material handling facility on a finger pier at Tradepoint Atlantic, said Mike Baker, President.

“There’s a lot of terminal work happening locally and in other states, and it seems to be picking up,” Baker said. “I don’t know if that’s part of the push to bring more manufacturing back to the States and the need to bring in more raw materials, but we’re getting a lot of leads from around the country for projects that are upgrading terminals.”

Designed to handle gypsum, salt, sand, gravel and other building materials, many projects are adding more automation to ship offloading “so they can get materials off the piers quicker and turn the ships around a lot quicker,” Baker said.

Meanwhile, commercial real estate and logistics company Prologis recently released a projection that the Port of Baltimore, which saw little growth in cargo traffic in 2024, should experience a 25 percent increase this year.

In its regular report about Maryland’s industrial real estate market released in January, CBRE noted that industrial property construction has finally risen back to its pre-pandemic pace after a distinct slowdown in 2024.

“The industrial development pipeline is still robust with 2.8 million square feet under construction [in Central Maryland] and expected to deliver through the first quarter of 2026,” CBRE concluded.

Finally, the Maryland Board of Public Works awarded a key, early contract in the plan to rebuild the Francis Scott Key Bridge. The $75 million general engineering consultant services contract went to Bridging Maryland Partnership, a joint venture of WSP, RK&K and JMT.

The partnership will help the Maryland Transportation Authority ensure the project’s accelerated design and construction process remains on track and audit processes with the bridge’s design-builder, Kiewit Infrastructure Co.

Project Profile: King Kia

In an era when consumers can easily buy cars by clicking a button on a website, aesthetics and functionality have become even more important to automobile dealerships.

“The industry is trying to attract people back into dealerships so they can have face-to-face interactions and show the bright finishes and car features,” said Scott Albright, Senior Vice President of MacKenzie Contracting Company.

A major renovation and expansion of King Kia in Laurel, designed by Flanagan Architects, created that contemporary standard of an attractive and highly functional dealership.

Built in the 1970s and altered with several, subsequent additions, the dealership was contending with some predictable challenges – an aging structure and building systems, cramped offices, inefficient storage, an outdated showroom and a customer lounge that was simply too dark.

Through a 24-week renovation of the 32,287-square-foot interior, MacKenzie upgraded the showroom with porcelain tile, top-grade LED lighting, new millwork and Kia-standard colors and finishes that are designed to convey the brand and impress customers.

Crews raised the low ceiling of a previous addition and outfitted the area with high-end carpet and glass partitions to create more pleasing office space. They reconfigured the parts department to support modern, efficient storage systems.

“We built a brand new break room and a new, beautiful customer lounge that has a coffee bar, credenzas, nice seating, music and comfortable places where people can wait for their cars to be serviced,” Albright said.

The service side of the dealership received a major upgrade through a 1,500-square-foot addition. The large, drive-through space is outfitted with automatic, roll-up doors and allows customers to drop off their cars in the comfort of an enclosed, conditioned area.

The project team upgraded the building’s mechanical and electrical systems, completed extensive roof work, and completely reskinned the building — an operation that included coordinating with Kia’s national installer of exterior metal panels.

The project had its challenges. Working on a 1970s building and its subsequent additions meant that crews had to address irregular and sometimes surprising placement of support beams and columns as they renovated spaces and brought the building up to current code.

The team also had to temporarily relocate King Kia’s staff into trailers in the parking lot — one each for offices, parts and customer service — as they completed major renovations inside the building.

“But it produced a tremendous transformation,” Albright said.

Dedicated volunteers prepare to complete SAFE Center

After four years of planning, building and overcoming challenges, the SAFE Center in one of the Baltimore’s most underserved communities is nearing completion.

A project of the nonprofit Safe Alternative Foundation for Education, the 3,200-square-foot center on South Payson Street will provide area teenagers and young adults with opportunities to explore career opportunities in construction, gain core skills and earn certifications in carpentry. The center has been designed to include a workshop and classroom space in order to deliver National Center for Construction Education (NCCER) accredited training programs in construction trades.

BC&E member companies, who have long supported the foundation’s after-school and young adult construction education programs, volunteered to help design, engineer and build the new center.

“This is the beauty of the BC&E. People totally rose to the occasion to support this project,” said John Stahl, former president of the BC&E Foundation and Vice President-Sales at Swirnow Building Systems. “Everybody stayed on top of the project. They figured things out and they got things done.”

That path has not been easy.

The project plan involves repurposing three vacant townhomes, including one that was converted into a carwash. 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 would be to tear the rowhomes down.

However, GWWO Architects developed a plan to transform the space in order to keep costs down but still create the desired facilities.

In recent months, MK Consulting Engineers completed site work engineering to ensure that a ramp into the building could be properly graded and installed according to code. Excell Concrete Construction tackled the project’s exterior concrete requirements and Baltimore Fabrication crafted and installed the custom railing and canopy.

Inside, professionals from James Posey Associates, Hatzel & Buehler, Ariosa & Company and Temp Air Company have been designing and installing all new plumbing, heating, cooling, ventilation and electrical systems.

Cap Ex Advisory Group approached the project team and offered to help with permitting and project management for the partly volunteer construction effort.

In total, 15 BC&E member companies have committed to the project: Ariosa & Company, Baltimore Fabrication, Bunting Door and Hardware, Cap Ex Advisory Group, Excell Concrete, Floors Etc, GWWO Architects, Hatzel & Buehler, Henry J. Knott Masonry, James Posey and Associates, Leonard A. Kraus Co., MK Consulting Engineers, Swirnow Building Systems, Temp Air Company, and The Whiting-Turner Contracting Company.

“We appreciate that all these member firms committed to this project. It will benefit the community and the industry at the end of the day,” Stahl said.

Recently, the project secured the permit to proceed with the remaining interior work, Stahl said.

Based on that approval, the project team is now preparing to hold a grand opening in July.

To date, “we have been working on this project for four years and two months,” said Van Brooks, Founder and Executive Director of the Safe Alternative Foundation for Education. “But it is worth it.”

Brooks estimates that annually he will be able to provide four cohorts of 12 students, aged 18 to 24, with the training program that leads to a carpentry certification. In addition, the center will support the foundation’s summer, construction trades program for high school students which Brooks is currently expanding from a one-week training to a five-week course. It will also support the foundation’s after-school program, which enables middle school students to explore construction trades.

That array of programs can produce impressive results, Brooks said.

Some students from the foundation’s middle school program have gone on to enroll in high schools where they can complete a construction trades program. One former participant in the middle school program is currently a construction trades student at Carver High School and plans to return to the foundation to earn a carpentry certification through the SAFE Center, he said.

BCE Foundation awards grants to construction educators

The BC&E Foundation has awarded more than $22,000 in grants to nine local organizations to support their efforts to develop the next generation of construction craftspeople and professionals.

“We were able to distribute a meaningful amount of money,” said Foundation Board Member Curtis Dalsimer.

Faced with a strong roster of applicants, the grants committee met multiple times to assess and score each application.

“We gave the most weight to the organizations whose mission aligns with the mission of the Foundation — to grow the future construction workforce in the greater Baltimore area,” he said. “We gave the highest scores to organizations where the funds would go directly into enhancing their program.”

Many applicants were seeking assistance to pay for materials that would be used by students in class. “These programs are not insulated from cost escalations and, unfortunately, their funding has been reduced,” Dalsimer said.

Prefab poses new ways to assemble buildings

When the project team began planning construction of the Great Wolf Lodge in Perryville, they knew the project would include some extraordinary aspects and challenges. The developer of the 700-room hotel, resort, waterpark and entertainment center was determined to create an exceptional product and willing to engage in some leading-edge construction processes to achieve that goal.

The construction timeline for the six-story, 116,500-square-foot lodge, however, was tight.

“Great Wolf Lodge is a great client,” said Kurt Gavalier, Director of Offsite Construction at Turner Construction Company. “They have been pushing some boundaries of prefabrication over the years. We have done many of their jobs and included things like prefabricated bathroom pods.”

On the Perryville project, however, achieving a weather-tight structure by a set date was a priority. To make that deadline, Great Wolf and the construction team engaged in “prefabrication with a purpose,” Gavalier said.

“They partnered with a firm out of Philadelphia that specializes in modularized exterior walls and cold-formed metal framing solutions, and they prefabricated their entire roof structure,” he said. “It was like watching a wood-frame house go up with the panels and the roof trusses, but this was cold-formed metal framing for a commercial building. Great Wolf was adamant that this was needed to reduce the critical path and they were able to suck two months out of the schedule by prefabricating the roof truss structure and the exterior walls.”

Prefabrication isn’t a new operation in construction, but it is evolving.

Aided by BIM, companies are devising new ways to utilize off-site solutions to address labor shortages, meet critical path goals, and heighten both the quality and efficiency of installations. Some companies have developed highly specialized prefab offerings. Others are partnering and even merging to produce new, multi-disciplinary, prefabricated products.

Enthusiasts say that increased use and evolution of prefabrication is gradually changing the way we assemble buildings.

“One of the most impressive things I have seen up to this point is vertical, multi-trade racks,” said Langdon Lynch, Northeast Prefabrication Lead at DPR Construction. On one DPR project, “there were 10 vertical racks, 60 feet tall in four main shafts. The racks included all the conduit, all the HVAC, even the shaft walls and we lifted each rack over the building to install it. The superintendents were really thankful because that process saved time, improved safety and overall made the job easier.”

Rosendin Electric Co., which has created two prefabrication shops at warehouses near BWI and Dulles airports, has gained substantial experience in prefabricating and installing multi-trade racks, and collaborating with other trades on prefabricating products.

“Most of the coordination we have done has been with the mechanical trade, trying to share assemblies for pipe and conduit,” said Tony Esteve, Business Development Manager. “In some instances, we have gone to mechanical shops and worked there if they have big louver assemblies. We will do the wiring in their shop before an assembly gets put up on a wall.”

On a recent project, Rosendin discovered a different opportunity to collaborate with another trade and improve construction efficiency.

“We were doing duct banks,” Esteve said. “We typically have conduit in large assemblies, often 40 or 50 feet, for the underground duct banks coming off of the utility transformer into the building switchgear. We will have trenches dug and just drop the assembly in so they can be connected and you’re not putting pipe in the ground, section by section. One of the concrete trades asked if we could add a latch or clip on our strut assembly so they could put concrete boards or guards on it. That way, they wouldn’t have to build an assembly around our assembly. We said, absolutely!”

Multi-disciplinary prefab efforts are expanding to include additional trades, such as collaborations among MEP and structural steel contractors, Gavalier said.

“But some multi-disciplinary doesn’t necessarily mean dealing with multiple entities anymore,” he added. “There are some one-stop shops that do multi-disciplinary prefabrication. We’re seeing some of this happen because of M&A [merger and acquisition] in the industry. Mechanical, electrical, plumbing, fire protection, and fire alarm companies, in order to grow their revenues, are gobbling up their peers. One benefit is they are able to perform more services, more prefabrication inhouse and reduce the external complexity of coordination.”

Whether they’re collaborating with other trades or working on their own, many companies are gradually developing better, more efficient, more innovative prefab/offsite solutions.

Rosendin has refined its process of prefabricating medical headwalls — the array of connections mounted behind the head of a hospital bed to support electrical receptacles, nurse call and other communication systems and other functions.

“We prefabricate the headwalls to have all the conduits, whips and connections ready in a structure assembly so we can just set them and connect them as the building comes together,” said Brandon Jachimski, Operations Manager for Rosendin in Maryland.

To make the transportation and installation of often-large prefabricated items easier and more efficient, Rosendin also adopted a practice of sending everything out of its prefab shop on wheels and then improved the practice.

“We had a data center project where we had multi-story cable trays in 20- and 30-foot sections that we planned to roll in on carts.” Esteve said. “Someone suggested why don’t we get rid of the carts and put swivel wheels on the struts and we could just remove them after the racks were installed.”

That change led to just one hiccup.

“There was one punch list item that came back. The owner was confused about why a wheel was hanging off a strut assembly,” Esteve said.

At DPR, Sure Pod prefabricated bathrooms have become a signature, high-efficiency, high-quality item on some projects. At 20 Mass — a Washington, D.C. hotel designed around the concepts of green construction, healthy lifestyles and high tech — DPR installed 400 bathroom pods.

“It is an exceptionally nice product,” said Bill Hahner, Preconstruction Executive. “If you weren’t told, you would have no idea they were prefabricated units. And that’s one of our goals. The final product should meet the architect’s vision.”

Occasionally, prefabrication on a project becomes “fully volumetric,” Lynch said. “One of our latest projects [a pharmaceutical facility in New Jersey] was fully volumetric which is the holy grail for me. Think Lego bricks but the inside of them are completely finished — interior walls, all MEP is in place. You are just taking these blocks, setting them in place and making the final connections between them. Those projects aren’t common. They are the highest aspiration and they allow us to show the possibilities of what you can do with prefab.”

Advances in prefabrication/off-site solutions are also beginning to enable companies to apply the processes to items that aren’t identical.

“We are heading down a path of knowledge and wisdom and digital transformation where the item doesn’t have to be repeatable, it just has to be configurable,” Gavalier said. “Think about a multi-discipline rack that has ductwork and piping and conduit and steel going up in a hallway ceiling. It is something we have seen in healthcare for years. Every one of those racks going down the hallway is going to be slightly different. They are not repeatable, but they are configurable.”

Prefabrication shops, he said, are learning “how to modularize and configure systems, understand the nuances of the fabrication lines, and integrate those fabricated elements to create those slightly different products.”