February 1, 2016

Steve Tatge takes on development of thousands of new dorm rooms at UW

The University of Washington recently combined three groups in charge of major projects — Capital Projects Office, Office of the University Architect and UW Real Estate Office — into a new division called Capital Planning and Development.

The goal is to improve efficiency because the school has a full plate of projects underway or planned.

The DJC asked Steve Tatge, who heads up the Major Projects Group of the new division, about those new projects and trends in contracting. Tatge was one of the speakers at the AGC’s Jan. 29 annual meeting in Bellevue.

Image courtesy of UW [enlarge]

More housing is coming to the UW’s North Campus, shown here as an early design.

Q: How are you addressing an apparent housing shortage?

A: The university’s Housing and Food Services has developed a comprehensive housing master plan for the Seattle campus, and Capital Planning and Development is working with them to implement that plan. In all, over 4,000 residence hall beds over 50 years old will be replaced with new construction over 10 years, with a net gain of 2,300 new beds.

The initial phase of the plan focused on a number of residence halls on West Campus (west of University Way Northeast) and with those projects successfully completed and occupied, our attention is turning to implementing the plan on the North Campus. The North Campus work is similarly divided into phases and will ultimately provide 3,200 beds, with associated open space, common areas and amenities. The first phase is in design while early site work is about to begin.

Q: What other big projects are in the works?

A: We have pre-designs just getting started for a new STEM building at UW Bothell, for new space at the T-Wing in Health Sciences, and for a Center for Advanced Materials and Clean Energy Technologies. There are a number of other projects being studied at a planning level, and we would expect some of those to eventually become projects.

Tatge

We’re in design on the Life Sciences Building, the Computer Science and Engineering expansion and the Burke Museum, along with the North Campus housing and a residence hall at UW Bothell — among others.

Q: The UW has revamped some of its AEC contracts. What has changed?

A: Part of my charge in my new position leading all major projects is to ensure we are consistently utilizing best practices, and certainly how those best practices are incorporated into contracts is a key element. I would say this is very much a work in progress, so more to come.

Generally, we will be emphasizing the high performance of integrated teams rather than separating design and construction, and we will also be emphasizing the efforts to increase business equity across the range of firms we contract with.

Q: How many UW projects use alternative contracting?

A: For the major projects, 100 percent.

Q: Is alternative contracting working for you?

A: Our alternative contracting approach has historically been GC/CM, and we have a long record of success with it. That said, I think we have a lot of room to improve our performance and project metrics, and I expect us to embrace qualifications-based design-build as a preferred delivery method going forward.

We want to get as close to true integrated project delivery as we are able to, and I believe that will offer us cost and schedule savings while still allowing us to deliver high-quality projects.

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