Western Michigan Dunbar Hall underwent a total renovation and expansion beginning in February 2022. Buist provided audio visual, communications, contracting, outdoor utilities, and prefabrication services.
The $40M project consisted of stripping the 50-year-old building down to the studs and adding 11,000 sq.ft. to create a space that better fits current and future educational needs. Dunbar Hall houses Western’s College of Arts and Sciences. The newly renovated space contains new classrooms, an impressive podcasting, journalism, and broadcast suit, a state-of-the-art dance studio, and common spaces. Due to the energy-efficient construction and other ‘green’ features, Dunbar is classified as a LEED Gold certified building.
As for Buist’s scope of work, this was a Design Assist project. Buist was responsible for providing power, all outdoor lighting, installing unique light fixtures, technology racks in classrooms, speakers, projectors, and cameras.
Buist used our prefabrication shop for rough-in assemblies and light fixture MC cable whips to maximize cost savings. This project had several different wall types and finishes that required multiple types of rough-in. We ran a drawing through Procore to show which areas had been reviewed by quality control and utilized observations to correct any issues.
For ease of construction, significant time was spent in the pre-construction phase for BIM model development, schedule development, and pre-planned material requestions and staging. Consistent schedule management throughout the project was essential to the overall success of the project.
