In lieu of our usual monthly meeting, IFMA had their first facility tour of the year. On Thursday, February 12 John Sutton, Mark Wendland and Corey Gillespie were our tour guides to their facility. Planned presenters included Sandra Paret, Vice President, and Donna Sprawls, Interiors Designer from HOK Architects, and Rick Potter, Construction Manager from Transwestern.

Things of interest:

Open space design; raised flooring throughout building; carpet squares; Inscape mobile furniture; light harvesting system; energy management; sound masking; data center, breakrooms, library and boardroom.

While the building was amazing, what was even more amazing was the project management software used during construction. With a click of your keyboard, you were able to pull up any portion of the project and find out information such as schedule for any portion of the project, company in charge of specific disciplines, contact names, phone numbers and addresses. You could also pull up photos of the project, organizational charts, data center updates, move updates, furniture updates, site improvement updates, technology updates, signage updates and the team roster.

February's IFMA meeting was a tour of the Texas Guaranteed Student Loan building in 301 Sundance. Sharon Henson opened the meeting with announcements on next months meeting and our golf tournament (Stay abreast at Coming Events on our web site ). She gave thanks to Marty Blank, Accent Foods, and Bill Embrey of InterTech Flooring, for the sandwiches. She then introduced John Sutton, Assistant Vice President.

John briefed us how his company arrived in this new building. In March of 2000 Texas Guaranteed started up their space analysis process, several years in advance of their office lease expiration of May, 2004. At the time, office space was in the 95 percent occupied status, so TG wanted to allow enough time for all considerations ranging from staying put at the Tower of the Hills, leasing space elsewhere, build-to-suit, or start from scratch and build from ground up. An RFP for real estate consultation services was issued and a real estate brokerage firm was hired. Then, architectural services were obtained to start a programming phase to determine TG's actual space needs.

As the process progressed, building space became cheaper and it became evident that existing office space would be available for lease or purchase. After doing their homework, defining their needs, they found 195,000 feet ready to build out in the La Frontera development in Round Rock.

For 83% of their employees, the daily commute to work is now equal to or closer than to their old building. While many people are leasing rather than tying up their capital, this was such a good deal, they bought the building. They developed a fast track to build out in 102 days. If they had moved their old furniture, it would have taken seven weekends to move and stay up in two locations. With new furniture, the move took four days. Moving furniture would have cost an extra million dollars in operational costs.

Since they have a fair amount of churn, TG installed four-inch raised flooring throughout the building to house power and communication cabling and developed open areas near the windows with the few offices in the center. The furniture selection was largely based on ease of reconfiguration and cabling. Flexibility is the key word. They didn't have strict office standards, but now they do.

One of the key elements of their fast track success was the web based management system. All the schedules, coordination, submittals and change order approvals are always available and up to date. Of course some of the areas were password protected. They also had three web cameras so you could monitor the work from afar. They had a full crew on each floor to keep up the pace. The floor tile came from the old country and the boat it traveled on was tracked everyday. Unfortunately, that boat was full of chickens, or something. The tile did come in on time, albeit on a different boat.

Energy conservation has been built into the building. A light harvesting systems monitors the outside lighting levels and adjusts the interior building lighting, saving both lighting and cooling dollars. Motion detectors control the open office building lighting by section and all offices, rest rooms and conference rooms have motion detectors to turn off the lights. After the briefing, we broke up into three groups to tour the building. I was impressed with the decor, layout, and amenities. I was very impressed with their leadership and organization skill to get the job done.

Submitted by J.R. Howard

A special thanks to Marcy Metzler, Inscape Furniture; Mary Durbin, FMG; Bill Imhoff, Intertech Flooring; and Mary Black, Accent Foods for the hors d'oeuvres and non-alcoholic beverages.