Rules for Financial Survival in the Construction Zone

Citation

Holt, G. (1999), "Rules for Financial Survival in the Construction Zone", The Bottom Line, Vol. 12 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/bl.1999.17012aab.001

Rules for Financial Survival in the Construction Zone

Rules for Financial Survival in the Construction Zone

Keywords: Buildings, Construction, Design, Libraries

My staff and I have had a decade's experience in library building and rehabbing. Through that period we have fitted out two new mini-branches in retail strip malls, erected new facilities and completed "gut rehabs" of older buildings, including historic Carnegie libraries. Controlling construction costs, therefore, is a continuing policy issue.

Our facilities resurrection is solidly funded but with little room for expensive frills. We do not erect monster libraries. When we finish our current project list, in addition to Central, we will have three regional branches running from 16,000 square feet (SF) to 38,000 SF, seven neighborhood branches between 7,500 and 14,000 SF, two youth branches at about 8,000 SF each and two mini-branches of about 2,000 SF.

Our build-out cost before furniture and computers is running between $120 and $135 per square foot, which is in the mid-range of current annual building costs reported annually by ALA. In other words, we develop facilities that fit within the size and cost range of many library systems.

Growing out of these experiences is a personal set of 13 rules for financial survival in the construction zone. This list is not definitive. As we gain more construction experience, I undoubtedly will develop more financial rules. In the meantime, I share this set with The Bottom Line readers.

Rule 1: Form follows mission

Our first rule is that a library building and its various elements must do an efficient job of helping carry out our mission-driven activities in good taste and without costing a fortune. A good library building can be distinctive without being expensively monumental.

If you can serve your community well with a less expensive building, do so ­ and spend more on the collections, computers and staff that will provide library service that will delight your users.

Rule 2: Borrow and adapt that which already works

Like many of this column's readers, my staff and I have visited hundreds of new libraries. Some are stunning design successes. Many have building elements that work very well. We have adapted elements from such successful designs. These include an efficient service desk for a branch, good signage for another branch, pleasant restrooms not hidden away in secret (and insecure) corners, and computer tables and carrels that move wire management, desk-top and lap-top computer settings beyond the book age.

Along with visiting libraries, all of us on the core design team spend lots of time in upscale retail stores. Store design tends to change much faster than library design, and to find fixtures that "move goods," stress attractiveness and usually are cheap enough to replace in only a few years, we often look to retail models.

We borrowed a glass-front jewelry-display counter as a new-book exhibit checkout station in one of our mini-branches. The idea for our lighted, curved-wall, face-out book shelving units came from a bookstore chain. We found one of our most loved ergonomic computer-worker chairs in a Seattle office and a functional furniture line for one entire branch in a retail display at Chicago's Merchandise Mart.

We try never to go to the time and expense of inventing something "new" (and therefore untested) when we can adapt from a successful model. Starting with something that is built and operational is almost always better and inevitably cheaper than starting anew.

Rule 3: Build the best you can afford

Building effectively almost never means building as cheaply as possible. If you intend to use your new library building for longer than a few years, then higher quality ­ and therefore more expensive ­ doors, floors, windows, plumbing, millwork and shelving ought to be "built to take it" over the long haul.

We cut corners on one new building and have been paying for it since. Two years before our last tax increase, we managed to squeeze an all-new branch out of our relatively meager cash reserves. The original bids were all at least $500,000 over the $2.3 million we finally spent. For a variety of good reasons, we believed we had to build rather than wait. We, therefore, cut 1,500 SF of floor space out of the original 17,000 SF, put the HVAC units on the roof and behind the building rather than in a basement and trimmed our electrical systems. The building opened in February 1993.

We have more than paid for every item we deleted from the original building program ­ in new wiring, tight space and HVAC that operates at the upper range of its capacity. If I had this project to do over again, I would try to withstand the community pressure and erect the original building at a later time. The message: always build the best you can afford.

Rule 4: Hire an architect with library construction experience

Every architect in every town or city wants to design at least one library before retiring, and boards almost always want to give local architects a chance to work on a library project. The difficulty in hiring an architect with no library building experience is that you and I then have to pay for the architect's learning curve in order to build a library that works.

Through the years we have worked with many architects, training them in library building in the process. If you haven't been there, it is hard to imagine sitting across from an architect who asks, "Tell me once more, why do you want such a heavy load factor on the floors?" Or getting back engineering drawings that show an electrical outlet for the vacuum cleaner in the middle of the main run of the computer power cable.

If it is possible for you to specify an architect with library design experience, do so. If not, be prepared to conduct classes in basic library design ­ and to pay for the privilege.

Rule 5: Do not assume you know more about buildings than any architect or engineering professional

This rule is an important modification of the previous rule.

The library profession is filled with "do-it-your-selfers" who honestly believe that they can learn more about building construction from reading a couple of books or by taking a couple of seminars than an architect knows after years of building design, even without having built a library.

This attitude is dangerous. We hire architects for the same reason that we turn to all professionals ­ to gain specialized knowledge. Once hired, your job is to work with them so that your system gets the best library for the money. Of course you should ask lots of questions, and you should point out the necessities in floor-loading, low-stack lighting and how related functions need to nest together. You also should learn enough to check the details of construction drawings to help find the inevitable mistakes. And you should be willing to make financial compromises on some building elements to get the elements you really want in the new building.

But listening carefully and following the advice of architectural and engineering professionals is an important part of any successful library construction project. Library professionals need to recognize that the cost of an architect's time to educate them about building essentials can be even more expensive than the cost for a librarian to educate an architect about libraries. "Working with an architect" to design a building project usually involves both types of education.

Rule 6: Know what you want ahead of time

The more you know about what you want, the more detailed the building program that you and your staff compose, the more your library will be able to control building costs. A good building process ­ and that includes the contacts between library construction staff and architects ­ almost always enriches a building program written by staff. That is because the consultation creates new possibilities that neither architect nor staff have considered previously.

That professional consultation, however, is different from repeated "change orders" after construction has begun. Some changes are necessary during construction, because as architectural renderings are built into reality, adaptations have to be made, especially in the rehabbing of old buildings. The most expensive changes, however ­ those like replacing a meeting room with more shelving, expanding or contracting the size of restrooms, or dropping in a relocation of the fiber backbone or the wiring grid ­ usually raise project costs in exponential ways. Those changes almost always come because library staff change their mind about important project elements.

Rule 7: Hire a construction manager

The more construction that a system is handling at once, the greater the need for professional construction management to handle day-to-day oversight of building activities. Construction managers come with different size staffs and with various kinds of expertise. They are worth considering for time management, quality control and value engineering, to name only three of their most-used specialties.

It is a great mistake to believe that regular library staff can oversee complex construction projects without regular management tasks being left undone. The more construction, the more time staff has to spend on it, and the greater the need for professional coordination of the construction operations. If construction is handled in-house, then a talented staff member needs to be designated as the construction supervisor to oversee the various projects. And that staff hole has to be filled to keep operations running smoothly.

Rule 8: Avoid project delays

Project delays are the most frequent reasons for escalated construction costs. Some ­ like a steel or a concrete strike ­ cannot be avoided. Others ­ like waiting around while library administrators and construction company managers fight over who will be responsible for the increased costs incurred in a change order because of problems in the original drawings ­ can be avoided by good planning and good communications.

Starting a construction project at the right time also can avoid time slips. We just agreed to delay the start of one branch rehab project because the old footings are so unusual that the contractor does not want to attempt an expansion tie-in until there is no chance of exposing the footings to freezing conditions.

Rule 9: Involve as few staff as possible in project planning

Building planning is a very specialized act. A lot of library staff ­ including many excellent librarians ­ do not have the ability and/or the knowledge to describe library operations in a way that contributes to a sound building program.

Our experience with multiple buildings is to involve the same three people in all construction decision making and to consult with other staff, including those who will work in the new facility, only on an as-wanted basis. Consultation needs to be on subjects that staff know about. That usually involves workstation amenities, current (not expected) traffic flows and how the old building's service areas function, especially as they affect current service.

The best source of information about current and potential users is not staff but demographic studies and focus groups and surveys of users and nonusers. We have never built or rehabbed a facility without developing this demographic information and consulting with user focus groups.

Rule 10: Reuse the buildings you own

There are lots of good reasons to tear down or move out of old library buildings. Not enough parking and no room to build more is one. No realistic possibility of rehabbing because of poor condition or structural peculiarities is another. Location on an inconvenient or out-of-the-way site is a third.

We have done a lot of "gut rehab" at old sites because we can buy adjacent land for parking, the location is not only all right but a significant factor in neighborhood life and ­ most importantly ­ we can rehab for less than we can build new. The first place to begin thinking about new construction is with a facilities needs assessment to see if it will be cheaper to rehab than to start over.

Rule 11: Have your purchasing life in order

Erecting a new building adds work to staff who already have a lot to do. Nowhere is this clearer than in the library's purchasing unit, whether that function is handled by a few hours weekly from a single person or by multiple staff in a purchasing department. Our purchasing staff workload is up between 40 percent and 100 percent when we are actively building over a year when no construction is occurring.

The best time to add capacity to purchasing staff is before problems begin ­ in other words, before construction begins.

Rule 12: Get a good lawyer

Being sued or needing to sue someone, unfortunately, is a regular part of the construction business. A sub-contractor does not get paid and decides that in spite of all legal evidence to the contrary, a suit against the library is the quickest road to payment. A contractor becomes lethargic about completing the project "punch list" because he decides unilaterally that he needs to be paid more before he can finish the project. Or, when a footing or wall is built in the wrong place, the contractor, the architect and the engineer all yell at one another, then stand back and hold out their hands to the library "owner" for a "change order" that will make them all whole financially.

A good construction attorney needs to be part of the library building team from the moment the institution begins to think about hiring a space planner and/or an architect.

Rule 13: Anticipate a changed future

The greatest mistake in current library design is that it too often replicates old libraries. A good question to begin with in building planning is "What business will the library system be conducting in this building in ten years?" Will 50 percent of the floor space be computers? Will community programming space needs increase? What percent of this library's business will be in book check-out in the year 2010? Will there be more or fewer staff working in this building in 2010?

Stores are way ahead of libraries in anticipating the future. They assume that retailing space will have to look different and function differently in a decade than it does now ­ and they make their interiors malleable. The central function of libraries always has been book storage, whether in open or closed stacks. The principal job has always been accessing books and magazines.

The most dangerous assumption that librarians can make in their design for library buildings is to believe that their future will be pretty much like the book-dominated past or the book-computer hybrid present we are designing now. If you believe, as I do, that library interiors will have to be changed to keep them current, then we ought to be striving to make our buildings as malleable as possible.

Rule 14: Build in preventive maintenance

My system operates a beautiful old Carnegie "palace" as its Central Library. That "palace" does not have a single janitor's closet on any one of its floors. Floor refinishing, therefore, entails lugging equipment from floor to floor. Lights are 42 feet in the air; the only way they can be changed is by renting a mechanical "cherry picker" that costs a month's pay for a branch manager just to bring it into the building.

Many modern libraries have similar maintenance problems built into them: table tops with surfaces that require refinishing (rather than heavy buffing) to get rid of scratches. HVAC systems with filter replacement points that only a contortionist can access. And custodial closets that make building maintenance professionals shake their heads in disbelief. Trying to reduce maintenance costs and conceptualizing a computerized preventive-maintenance program when designing a new or rehabbed building can save enormously in long-term operating costs.

Conclusion

I close this column by noting again its unfinished character. I am sure that those who have built library buildings will be able to add other financial rules for success in the construction zone than the ones I have outlined here. I know I will want to add others as my library completes more building projects.

In the meantime, I urge those of you about to start construction projects to establish your own list of financial rules for success in the construction zone. You will save both money and headaches if you do so.

Glen Holt is Executive Director of the St Louis Public Library