Maximize beds. This was the most important directive for the team of the student project of 195 million dollars of Cal Poly Humboldt when it was first planned in 2022. After two years of construction, the project: Hinar Hu Moulik East & West Student in St. Louis Road, is on the court to bring 964 beds to the Arcata, California, Campus at the end of this year, growing the college bed count by almost half. It is also the largest student housing project that the university has ever carried out.
“This is a project we have really talked about with the campus for about a decade,” says Sean Falvey, vice president and regional director of northern California at Sundt Construction.
Sundt Concrete places the West Building MAT Foundation and the East Building Llosa in Grau. The team placed 1,000 CU YD in these locations in one day, while the cranes were used to establish a reinforcement and a roof format.
Photo courtesy of Sundt Construction
In January 2022, the Humboldt State University became Cal Poly Humboldt, the third Polytechnic School in the State and the first in northern California. Thanks to the investment of $ 458 million from California to the school and its change to become a Cal Poly, the university will add 27 new academic and experimental programs by 2029, with a strong approach to the STEM program.
This cash infusion made the Hinarr Hu Moulik project possible. It is the first of the multiple housing facilities to be built as part of the Polytechnic expansion. Performing the project has requested a large logistics planning and coordination, given the isolated location of the site.
By virtue of a collaborative design delivery of design design, Sundt and SCB joined in 2022 to begin work, with innovative after May 2023, less than 12 months between the contract award and the start of construction. The story of Sundt and SCB goes back to about 20 years in various projects throughout North California, one of the most recent is the complex of Phase II of $ 100 million of Village Campus of the San José State University.
The Hinarr Hu Moulik complex has a couple of seven -story concrete structures at the site, which covers 314,000 square meters and are coated with a prefabricated concrete panel facade, located in a 12 -hectare place on the motorway from the campus. These Leed Gold buildings, all electricity, will be the highest in Humboldt County.
The aim of maximizing the number of beds that the installation could house reflected the wider approach to accessibility, says Tim Stevens, director of SCB. “One of the ways we addressed this requirement was to focus on beds per square foot and make the apartment units as efficient as the code is allowed,” he adds.
Some strategies included programming mainly double -occupied bedrooms, using modular kitchen settings in each type of unit and maintaining a low bed / bathroom relationship.
“With regard to community comforts, we are lean, but it does not spat. Each floor has at least one common study room and the level of the soil has a variety of spaces for support for students and community,” he says. “Density plays an important role in achievement.”
The installation is moving on the counters and the reinforcement of column no. 11 and no. 18. CMC prefabricated the project bar in an installation of the area of the bay, and then transported it to the site for installation.
Photo courtesy of Sundt Construction
Building remotely
Arcata, a city of about 20,000, is six hours of both Sacramento and San Francisco, without comparable projects anywhere.
“One of the strategies of the project is because it is so far away, we have to think about what we are building, how we are building and what materials we use,” says Falvey. “We were already talking about mechanical systems for units. We were working with the Campus facilities department and they said,” We love some of these energy efficient ideas, we need simple and maintainable products that still work very well. “This had a great influence on some of the things we did.”
Since there are only small local hardware stores available in the immediate area, there is no deposit or Lowe for hours, which often meant to go with the simplest options. Choose a standard toilet about something more avant -garde, for example.
“In terms of community services, we are lean, but it did not spread.”
—They Stevens, director, SCB
Another remote location challenge meant the size of the labor force, which was also driven by the typology of the construction. Initially, the work was programmed as a type 5 wooden project, typical for the area, but during the design process, the project team launched the idea of concrete.
“There are a couple of benefits and a couple of disadvantages,” says Falvey, pointing to the lifetime of 30 to 40 years of wood -framed buildings compared to the 50 years of concrete.
“The other benefit for this, which really pushed for a part of the decision -making, was that the creation of a type 5 wood structure that housed about 1,000 beds would require 100 to 200 people in the place coherently,” says Falvey, emphasizing that a specific structure would have between 30 and 40 people regularly on the site.
The choice of concrete allowed the project to reach seven stories, cutting off the footprint and impacts on the site while providing more beds in two concrete buildings than several buildings with wooden frame, according to Shawn Marty, Senior Projects responsible for Sundt.
Concrete also means a lower risk profile and helps programming and quality. “It was a collaborative decision -making process with the campus that allowed us to spend a few more money on the highest quality structure and minimize the risk of what could happen if we could not house so many carpenters,” says Falvey.
He came to “a lot of planning,” adds Marty. “We had some of the operations at the beginning, all MEPs, the outside facade was prefabricated in Woodland and Sundt self -produced the concrete.”
The Sundt concrete crews finish the placement of the level 2 cover of the East building.
Photo courtesy of Sundt Construction
Find solutions
It was located in a high seismic area, the project had to comply with the seismic construction code required by the State together with the requirements of the CSU seismic seismic board, which forced the system buildings that passed several factors beyond the code.
Along with 17,000 Cu from 5,000 to 8,000 psi of concrete, the structures have 5.2 million LB of reinforcement steel. “When talking to our structural engineer, it’s just an extremely robust design,” says Falvey. “Some of our shear walls are 3 feet thick 20 feet in length and climb seven floors. Our engineer, DCI, said that this is, with much, the most robust building they have ever designed.”
“Our engineer, DCI, said that this is, with much, the most robust building they have ever designed.”
—Ean Falvey, Vice President and Regional Director of Northern California, Sundt Construction
Inside these shear walls are number 11 and number 18, the second with a circumference “like the size of a soda can,” adds Marty. “CMC prefabricated each time receiving in an installation of the bay area, and then transported here and settled. Everything was so heavy that we had two tower cranes here and multiple hydraulic cranes.”
The feet were only massive, large enough to adapt -up to ten school buses before they were concrete, recalls Marty.
But with the need for so specific high strength, the team had to adapt because simply there was no depth of the construction partners of the construction or the sizes of the crew locally, says Stevens. “Many of our strategies during design development were based on autonomous construction, out -of -place manufacture and, when available, the use of local suppliers,” he says.
The local concrete supplier Eureka Ready Mix, for example, regularly performs sidewalk and house slabs, not hundreds of meters of concrete of 8,000 PSI daily. As a result, the Sundt concrete team coordinated with Eureka in mixtures and ingredients hiring to ensure that the concrete produced would fulfill the requirements.
“For them to obtain the cement and the materials and the rock and the aggregate, they had to climb. Everyone had to climb,” says Marty. When the single lot plant finally worked, the whole concrete went directly to Hinarr Hu Moulik for the best part of 10 months.
Even local pumping crews had never seen any project on this ladder: they bought a 54 -meter bomb for this job, adds Marty. “Our specific boys worked with them and were able to buy the team to do this job that did not even exist here.”
Work on the structures and the manufacture of prefabricated concrete coating occurred in tandem, so the minute that the structures were complete, Clark Pacific, based on California, could immediately begin the prefabricated installation, completing this work in a few weeks. The glass was pre -installed at the factory, and further accelerated the process.
The silt concrete crews placed the level 4 cover of the East building, while the Bigge subcontractor installed the material lift. At the same time, the tower crane moved and set up tables.
Photo courtesy of Sundt Construction
“The fact that Clark Pacific involved in design design allowed us to optimize his system to fulfill the strict budget requirements,” says Stevens. “It was a huge advantage for a climate that receives an amazing amount of precipitation during the winter and spring months.”
Arcata sees about 40 to 50 inches of rain a year. Despite having about 30 rainy days throughout the construction (and without counting them), the project team was able to collect two months at the schedule. The sequencing was made almost until the time, keeping the shops in motion sequentially.
With a 12 -hectare place, the team also had to navigate huge amounts of rainwater. “We had two withholding ponds containing 750,000 gallons of water, but the ground here did not allow them to move forward, so they were only filled,” says Marty. With the continuing rainfall, the team decided to make a company a complete water treatment plant on the site. As a result, the team was basically pumping drinking water from these ponds at 600 gallons in the city system, according to Marty. This helped prevent floods in the surrounding neighborhood and made it clear.
With the monitoring of work before the calendar and 515,000 hours of workers, it was recorded to date, with the lost time or the records, the East building will be complete this summer, followed by the west building at the end of 2025.
“This is an extremely efficient student housing project with a cost per bed. If you are below $ 200,000 a bed with a project with public funding, it is a fairly efficient building. We are well below it,” says Falvey.
