Walton Construction St. Louis has been selected as general contractor for the new $6.7 million, 20,000-square-foot Chesterfield Medical Institute. The facility will include an outpatient surgical unit and three medical practices — Laser & Dermatologic Surgery Center, West County Dermatology and Generation Dental Group. Walton also is providing pre-construction, estimating and value engineering on the two-story medical complex. The architect on the project is Feeler-Scheer Architects LLC.

Source: St. Louis Business Journal

Southern Illinois University Edwardsville has contracted with Kwame Building Group Inc. for construction management of various renovations and new construction projects related to the university’s facilities master plan.

KWAME will act as an advisor to the University by reviewing project program, design and construction phases relative to issues of cost, schedule, constructability and quality control.

Source: Commercial Journal St. Louis

Kwame Building Group of St. Louis played a key role as program manager in helping St. Louis Community College achieve LEED Gold certification on its new Wildwood campus. The project received the certification this month.

The $18 million 75,000-square-foot St. Louis Community College Wildwood campus is the largest community college facility in the United States to receive U.S. Green Building Council Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Gold certification.

“Having KWAME as our full-time, on-site construction manager on a job of this size and complexity insured that the work progressed as it should and that all prerequisites were met to qualify for LEED,” said Carla Chance, vice chancellor of business and administration services at St. Louis Community College.

“Without question, KWAME was a key player in our LEED Gold accomplishment,” she said.

The new campus construction included high-tech classrooms, a science lab, faculty and administrative offices, an art studio, and a bookstore. The rooftop was planted with 4,000-square-feet of sedum, a drought-tolerant plant that reflects heat in the summer and insulates the building from cold in the winter. The facility will be 30 percent more energy efficient than a typical code-compliant building of the same size.

A jury in St. Louis County today ruled in favor of the Cross County Collaborative (CCC) on all counts in a lawsuit that was brought by St. Louis Metro over the eight-mile Metrolink extension from Forest Park to Shrewsbury.

Cross County Collaborative was a joint venture of four companies hired to design and manage the project. The companies which include Parsons Brinckerhoff, STV Inc., Jacobs Engineering Group and Kwame Building Group of St. Louis were fired by Metro in 2004.

Metro alleged mismanagement and fraud, and sought $81 million in damages. The jury rejected the claims and awarded nothing.

In a counterclaim, the CCC accused Metro of making them a scapegoat and damaging their professional reputations, and sued for $6 million for work it performed. The jury awarded the team $2.56 million.

After Metro terminated the CCC and took over management of the project, the light rail opened in August 2006, 15 months late and more than $126 million over budget.

Richard Hardcastle, attorney for the CCC, said in a statement “For more than three years we have maintained that Metro wrongfully terminated the CCC and that its claims were baseless. We are pleased that the jury has agreed with us on all counts.

“It was a long process but one with great significance to the citizens of St. Louis. With this issue behind us, each of the firms looks forward to continuing to serve the St. Louis community in future assignments.”

More than a third of the 200 construction project and program owners surveyed by the Construction Management Association of America said they have used Building Information Modeling (BIM) on one or more projects. BIM is being adopted at an accelerating rate, according to a survey published in Building Design + Construction.

Building Information Modeling (BIM) refers to the use of digital information on a building project, such as cost, schedule, fabrication, maintenance, energy, and 3-D models. BIM is used for design decision-making, production of high-quality construction documents, predicting performance, cost estimating, construction planning, and managing and operating the facility.

Source: Building Design + Construction