St. Louis Community College Harrison Center construction complete, green public higher education facility
September 21, 2010
ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI – Kwame Building Group (KWAME) has completed work as the construction manager and owner’s representative on the new $10 million St. Louis Community College’s William J. Harrison Northside Education Center in St. Louis, Missouri. The 31,000-square-foot education center in the JeffVanderLou neighborhood in north St. Louis City opened for classes in August. KAI was the architect.
“Holding the budget on this project was an important challenge, given rising material costs during construction,” said Ronald Roberts, Project Executive. “We identified many cost-effective solutions that allowed us to construct a sustainable and highly functional addition to the St. Louis Community College system.”
The Harrison Center, the first “green” public higher education facility of its kind in St. Louis City, is seeking Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Gold certification. The center’s energy efficient heating and cooling system includes heat pumps in offices and classrooms for individual comfort. Other green features include controllable lighting, the use of recycled materials, low VOC paint and non-toxic building materials and furnishings.
The new center will offer credit and non-credit courses in environmental sciences, allied health, computers/technology, and workforce training and development. The facility includes an art studio, science and computer labs, five classrooms, multi-purpose community room, bookstore, commons area, outreach center and administrative offices.
The Harrison Center is the second recent project in which St. Louis Community College and KWAME have teamed to collaborate on a sustainable building project that will pursue a LEED certification. The new St. Louis Community College-Wildwood campus was awarded LEED gold certification in February 2008. KWAME served as project manager on that project as well.
The Harrison Center originally opened in 1994 to provide education programs to a previously underserved north St. Louis City population and to anchor the neighborhood with an important resource. In the past, the center served more than 6,000 people annually but course offerings were limited and many programs were conducted off-site due to space constraints.
Kwame Building Group is a pure program and construction management firm providing estimating, scheduling, project planning, value engineering and other project management services as an independent advocate for owners and developers. Public and private sector projects include educational facilities, major airports nationwide, light-rail systems, hospitals and government facilities. KWAME is headquartered in St. Louis with division offices in Atlanta, Dallas, New Orleans, Oklahoma City, Phoenix, Pittsburgh and Seattle. For more information, visit www.kwamebuildinggroup.com or call 314.862.5344.
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Mary Schanuel
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St. Louis Community College’s William J. Harrison Northside Education Center in St. Louis, Missouri.
Harrison Center lobby
Harrison Center chemistry lab
Harrison Center break area
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