A Sea Of Red

It looks like we are having more construction issues. Why is it so tough to complete a construction project in Lynchburg?

Construction under watchful eyes

Ron Brown
rbrown@newsadvance.com
January 23, 2006

With 160 days and counting until the scheduled opening of the new Thomas Road Baptist Church, the Rev. Jerry Falwell is taking no chances with a work delay.

Falwell has taken the fairly unusual step of having one contractor assess the work progress of another.

Coleman-Glass Construction, a Lynchburg firm, has been given the responsibility of making sure the $18 million project gets finished on time.

“We’re pulling out all the stops to make it happen,” Falwell said.

The church has invested a lot of time and money in promoting the opening of the new church on July 2, its 50th anniversary.

“It’s most important,” Falwell said.

While Kodiak Constructors, the project’s general contractor, has completed other Falwell-related jobs successfully, its been hurt by the loss of some key employees.

“The foreman we have been working with has left the company,” said Jerry Falwell Jr., Falwell’s son and Liberty University’s vice chancellor.

Coleman-Glass brings with it a good track record of getting projects done for the Falwells on budget and on time.

The most recent example is the construction of the new LaHaye Ice Center, which was formally dedicated last weekend.

Prior to that was the successful construction of the LaHaye Student Center and the new Early Learning Center in what was once the Ericsson Plant.

“Coleman-Glass has done an excellent job on those projects,” Falwell Jr. said. “They’ll make an excellent representative for us on the church project.”

Joe Coleman, one of the partners in Coleman-Glass, said his company can help foster better communications between Kodiak and the Falwells.

“We’re here to reinforce the expectations,” he said. “We will search out potential problem areas.”

Initially, Coleman-Glass determined that the church project was about 8 weeks behind schedule.

The company made suggestions, such as getting more roofers involved and working double shifts to make up for lost time.

With those adjustments, the project is getting back on schedule.

“We’ve had good conversations with Kodiak,” said Darryl Glass, the other partner in the Coleman-Glass. “It is a large project. There are a lot of details.”

Falwell Jr. said Coleman-Glass’ attention to those details is the reason they’ve been hired.

“They have a lot of expertise in construction,” Falwell Jr. said. “It is critical that the new church meets its deadline.

While the Falwells have historically depended on university staff to oversee construction projects, the number of projects simultaneously going on has stretched that staff thin.

“Our internal crews have more than they can handle,” said Charles Spence, LU’s associate to the chancellor for major projects.

Just this year alone, the campus’ construction projects include the church, a football operations center, five new dorms, intramural sports fields and Liberty Christian Academy’s athletic fields.

Those projects are in addition to the construction of several new academic departments within the Ericsson building and final details needed to finish the ice center and the new Lynchburg Christian Academy.

An indoor track at the Ericsson building is also a work in progress.

Falwell Jr. said the university is growing so fast that construction projects will always be on a tight deadline.

“Dormitories are almost always going to be a rush job,” he said. “We usually don’t know until November or December how many beds we’ll need for the next year.”

LU will likely have 9,700 residential students next year.

Falwell Jr. said the working relationship with Coleman-Glass signifies a new era.

He said he hopes to have more local firms involved as general contractors in the LU’s future construction projects.

Up next for the university will be an 18,000-seat convocation center and perhaps an alumni club atop the 85-foot tower at the Ericsson building.

“There are opportunities,” Glass said.

http://www.newsadvance.com/servlet/Sate ... 8719&path=

To me this typifies projects at LU. We hire Kodiak construction, obviously becasue their bid is lower, even though we know that Coleman-Glass is probably the better company. Now, we are paying Kodiak AND Coleman-Glass, doubling the initial price. Anybody else see a problem with this?

this is typical of most construction projects...

I dont know how you can dig at Kodiak like that. Those 3 floors on top of Demoss went up faster than most contruction projects I've ever seen.

and perhaps an alumni club atop the 85-foot tower at the Ericsson building.

Gooooooaaal! That sounds fun.

I wouldnt say the reason they went with Kodiak is b/c the bid was lower, it was about the same...but Coleman showed some people a bad side when Lynchburg City Stadium was only supposed to take 1 year and it turned into 2 and a half...

They've had great success with Kodiak in the past and couldnt be happier although now things are getting put up at a different pace

Let's not forget to that we always change the plans at least 4 or 5 times in the middle of construction.. i.e the Ice Center. It's kinda hard when you change things left and right. I am very interested to see the new plans for this convaction center. I really hope that they don't take it literally and make it just for convaction or super conference.

If the plan is 25k on campus someday, why not just save the pennies here and there and build a 35k seat facility that just so happens to double as a football dome by sheer coincidence. 18k seats seems short sited.

givemethemic wrote:Let's not forget to that we always change the plans at least 4 or 5 times in the middle of construction.. i.e the Ice Center. It's kinda hard when you change things left and right. I am very interested to see the new plans for this convaction center. I really hope that they don't take it literally and make it just for convaction or super conference.

exactly....and you know that falwell gets involved everyday...

we had a museum that i did the hardware for here that was originally a 28 mil 2 yr project that ended up being a 35 mil 3.5 yr project because the owners couldn't make decisions, constanstly stuck their nose in, and didn't let the gc just do the work. then the owner is furious because its taking longer than expected...

seen it a million times...this museum went through 6 plan changes....6 sets of new plans with 200 pages worth of changes...

still fascinated w/ the prospect of an alumni lounge on the 8th flr of campus north

that alumni lounge is a great idea. anyway kodiak is a quality firm. my old job was in the HVAC business and we dealt with kodiak quite a bit. they have an outstanding reputation with churches, building large churches in flower mound, tx, kingsport, tn, and in roanoke, va. they also built that six story dorm on campus behind the old "senior dorms", and do a lot of retail and office buildings. i agree with the mallet that delays are a part of construction. i am glad that we have a good relationship with coleman-glass. it is good that a local company can be involved and that LU can answers pretty fast!

LUconn wrote:I dont know how you can dig at Kodiak like that. Those 3 floors on top of Demoss went up faster than most contruction projects I've ever seen.

and perhaps an alumni club atop the 85-foot tower at the Ericsson building.

Gooooooaaal! That sounds fun.

Obviously you weren't around when it was being built. The reason Kodiak got the job wasn't because of speed, it was because they promised (successfully) that the job could be done without closing down the school.

With the convo center, I'm wondering -- how many will the new TRBC seat? Will you really need another massive center?

Why not just have one giant one? You can have church in a giant basketball arena, just as Joel Osteen.

No I was here. My freshman year was the last year of normal Demoss. I'm not saying why they were chosen. I'm just saying they did it really fast. As soon as they did all the prep work, like reinforcing and what not, the actual building looked different every couple of days. I was impressed. Except for the poisonous gas that leaked through the vents in the big Demoss room and got my GNED class out early.

Back to my pessimistic self, here. 18,000 capacity for what? Convo? Superconference? Certainly NOT Big South Basketball. It's a great concept, and the Vines seems terribly dysfunctional for a building that size. But let's be realistic about having a DOUBLE capacity than the Vines.

BUT- Jerry has his mind set on it. And he stated he either has a donor, or has people interested. I gotta dig up that quote- but nothing that man does surprises me anymore- thats some incredible faith and vision.

Now, IF it is done right, it could be a good thing. Have a couple of levels or tiers, with upper levels curtained off so a half-filled arena won't seem so deserted. They also have to make it FUNCTIONAL, with bleachers that retract so their could be more court-space. Levels under the permanent stands needs to be able to be built-out for offices, legit locker rooms, classrooms, etc. They could take a trip to Marshall (the univ, not the coach) to see how to do it, right--although what Dr. Falwell is considering would be on a grander scale.