From about 1717 to 1723, composer Johann Sebastian Bach was in the “Cöthen” period of his life, where he served as Kapellmeister – the highest musicianfs rank for the period – for Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Cöthen in Germany. During this period he composed most of his sonatas, including “Sonata No. 3 in E Major” for violin and keyboard.
Whether Bach knew the enduring nature of his work at the time is unknown. But ask the 1,300 patrons who witnessed the grand opening of the Sandler Center for the Performing Arts in Virginia Beach, Va., Nov. 3, and the three centuries that separate Bach from the present melted away for a short time. Renowned violinist Itzhak Perlman saw to it, giving his nod as perhaps the best violinist in the world to the Baroque period composer with his rendition of the sonata. And he did it in a new, state-of-the art facility representing the first design-build project for the City of Virginia Beach – one that already has made design-build a preferred method for future city projects.
The building process was a teaching tool for the city, where it realized that design-build wasn’t simply for generic city projects, such as firehouses or jails. Instead, the project revealed design-build’s versatility, cost effectiveness and ability to bring together the best combination to create a state-of-the-art facility, while creating aesthetic appeal city planners only dreamed of.
Early Doubts
“The city had never done a design-build project nor had I, and in doing our research the staff’s position back to our city council was not to use design-build; it was inappropriate to use design-build because of the complexities of the building and the need to entertain user interest and user participation,” says Everette L. Herndon Jr., P.E., buildings section supervisor for the City of Virginia Beach. “My spin on design-build at the time was, ‘It’s really good if you don’t care about the aesthetics, but if you care about the aesthetics it’s probably not a good way to go.’” Herndon assumed design-build would work best for “industrial plants and warehouses and those sorts of things.”
But the city council chose design-build anyway, and Herndon quickly changed his mind as the project got underway. After completing studies on the local market, to determine size (1,300 seats) and location (an up and coming “city center’ with shops, restaurants and condominiums), they solidified plans for the new facility. “At the time our city council wanted us to pursue that mechanism to build the new theater project with the hope we could build it with some revenue generating functions within the project to help offset costs and also to marry up with our city schools division to create and educational component,” Herndon says. The process, therefore, was to advertise the project and establish a pre-qualified list of design-build firms. After assembling about a dozen firms, the city issued its request for proposals (RFP). Herndon says that everything he had heard about design-build dictated that “the more you define your requirements, the better off you’re going to be.”
To offset concerns about aesthetic plans, the city had a simple solution: “One of the things that we established in our criteria for the selection process was we included a design competition, and that weeded them out fast,” Herndon says. “There was a lot of discontent amongst a lot of these firms about the cost risk ratio … spending that kind of money up front.” With few firms willing to spend their own money and time on such a competition – only two firms competed for the job. “The public got to come in and look at the two presentations and vote … and then we had a method that we used to weigh all those scores and everything to come up with the best technical score, then we added a financial element to it, which was really a slam dunk, because one firm was on budget and the other was about three times the budget,” Herndon says. “We were very fortunate and lucky that the public voted for the one that was on budget.”
The local firm, Clancy & Theys from Newport News, Va., won the contest and got the $50 million job. While local, the firm brought the best from all around together to complete the project. “You know you’ve got a good contractor when you get one who doesn’t bid work,” Herndon says. “Sometimes you say you’d rather be lucky than good. We lucked out that this firm got the job. They were absolutely committed to producing a quality project that they would be proud to have their names on.”
Perhaps the biggest plus for the performing arts center was the use of Kirkegaard Associations for acoustic expertise. Past project experience for them included the Isaac Stern auditorium at Carnegie Hall in New York, the Chicago Symphony Center and Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco, among many other venues worldwide. The design-builder also utilized the expertise of the Texas Scenic Theater Company, whose projects include New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts Institute and the College of Communication Arts in Virginia Beach.
The results were far beyond anything Herndon expected from a design-build project. “I can just stand in the lobby and point out features that if they didn’t happen to be there, it would have still been very nice,” he says. Also, with the firm’s flexibility, addressing problems on site was particularly efficient. Perhaps the most challenging situation was concurrent construction on the town center taking place near the front of the hall by another firm, which basically forced movement of the lay down area for Clancy & Theys. “It affected the way he was going to construct the building [and] kept cranes from front of the building,” Herndon says. “They had to do some structural reengineering, so [the builder] could have huge openings on the side of the building as opposed to the front to be able to access crane traffic … [but] everybody played nice together in the sandbox and we pulled it off.”
This allowed a variety of projects to be complete at virtually the same time – a five-story condominium, a restaurant as well as a new Westin hotel. They were all complete within about a month of one another – at least the exteriors – which allowed for little, if any construction equipment visible in and around the site on opening night.
Learning Curve
“One of the things, and I don’t know if it’s unique to us, here in Virginia Beach … when the design-build team got to where they could do their civil drawings and submitted these drawings to the city for review, the details on the Westin had been developed, so our economic development department was having to … chang[e] my site plan, adding stuff to make it compatible to the Westin, and so [they were] holding me up by adding stuff that wasn’t in my contract,” Herndon says. “What it told me was, although we had all these studies to really help us define our building, dealing with the site plan is still an opportunity for the city to add scope to the project. That’s just unforeseen by anybody at the time that you’re putting together the design-build proposal.”
For the city’s second design-build project, currently underway, such things are not an issue. “The RFP that went out included an approved site plan,” Herndon says. “All of a sudden, I’ve created a shotgun marriage between the design-builder and the civil engineer.”
Perhaps the best aspect of the process was the limited red-flag issues that ultimately arise in the course of a project. “We really had a great handle on what we wanted and what we needed,” Herndon says. “It didn’t take much of my project manager’s time in dealing with a lot of these issues because a lot of these design issues we never know about. They”re all handled internally.”
If anything, this first design-build project for Virginia Beach proved that the method can apply to any project, despite some early reservations about aesthetics and simply the polish that the city was looking for in the project, and without the litigation and other issues often inherent in many design-bid-build projects.
In the end, the new performing arts center was better than good enough for Virginia Beach; it was good enough for a world-class violinist on opening night; in essence, it was good enough for Bach as well.
INFO: www.clancytheys.com, www.sandlercenter.org, www.vbgov.com