The University’s treasurer declined to give an estimate for the Science and Engineering Complex in an interview with The Hatchet last week, saying it is too early in the building’s planning stages to provide a potential cost for the facility.
Executive Vice President and Treasurer Lou Katz declined to name a price or ballpark figure for the complex, saying the University has not yet determined the ratio between academic and office space in the building. Original costs presented to the Faculty Senate in 2008 were between $180 and $270 million without equipment, which would make the SEC the most expensive building in University history.
The University is currently in the pre-design phase of the project, determining the type of programming that will be held in the building before moving forward with cost estimates and construction plans, Katz said. Last year, Katz said the earliest construction on the SEC would begin is in the first half of 2011.
“It’s very different costs for offices, and teaching facilities, and research facilities,” Katz said. He added that the University will build the shell for the entire building, but may not fill all of the floors from the start, which, he said, would significantly alter the project’s estimate.
“Each floor is approximately 50,000 square feet,” Katz added. “Depending on what kind of floor that you want to leave vacant, that could be $10 [million] to $20 million dollars difference in price for each vacant floor, so it depends on a lot of different factors.”
Last week, the company in charge of developing the programming for the SEC – Ballinger – presented three rough estimates of floor plans to GW’s Faculty Senate. Some members of the Faculty Senate voiced concern that the project was too far along in the planning stages to not have a price tag.
“Some of the people who raised issues were saying this long before we had any diagrams, they were saying we shouldn’t have this Science and Engineering Complex,” Katz said of the outspoken critics of the project at the Faculty Senate meeting. “So they are not talking about this versus that. They are saying why are we spending money on that.”
Katz added that the diagrams the design firm presented to the Faculty Senate last week were only rough ideas of possible uses of the space.
“This was not an exercise to determine cost,” Katz said. “Once we get the programming agreed upon – and we are close on that – then we will go to a cost estimating phase.”
Katz said the building is being conceptualized using a bottom-up approach – determining what will be in the building and then assessing costs, rather than preemptively placing a price tag on it – something Katz said would potentially limit what could be included in the building.
“A building, depending on what you put in there and if it’s vacant, could be built $200 a foot to over $1,000 dollars a foot,” Katz said. “Multiplying that range of numbers, depending on what it is, is not a productive exercise at all.”
Markku Allison, a resource architect at the American Institute of Architects, said it is difficult to say whether or not an estimate should be available at this stage in the University’s planning.
“I think it’s largely context-dependent, and it depends on how the relationship has been structured between the University and the architectural firm and the services they have agreed upon to be included as part of their scope,” Allison said.
He added that design firms are often contractually obligated to provide estimates to clients, but those estimates are determined at various stages of the design process.
“In some instances, a design firm may provide an estimate during the construction drawing phase of the project. In another instance they might provide a cost estimate in the design development or schematic design phase of the project, or in some instances they might agree to provide an opinion of cost during the pre-design phase,” Allison said. “But that is entirely dependent on the context of the agreement that has been developed between the University and the design firm. There is no standard methodology that applies to every single project.”
Craig Spangler, an architect at Ballinger, did not return request for comment.
