Engineering Inc. - January/February 2009 - (Page 23) MuLTI-PrOJeCT FeaTure Making Space at McCormick Place PrOJeCT: McCormick Place Convention Center West expansion, Chicago FIrM: a. epstein and Sons International, Inc., Chicago W hen the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority (MPEA) launched the West Expansion project for McCormick Place Convention Center in Chicago, the organization had a lofty goal: to design and build “the very finest convention center ever built, to set the new standard by which all other mid- and largesized meeting and exhibition facilities will be judged in the future.” MPEA, which owns and operates McCormick Place, contracted with Mc4West LLC, a design-build consortium that includes Chicagobased architecture and engineering firm A. Epstein and Sons International, Inc., to help meet its objective. Designed to prepare McCormick Place for the future of a convention industry increasingly geared toward professional association meetings, the project represents a massive expansion of an already expansive facility. The West Expansion added more than 2 million square feet of space to the McCormick Place Campus—a facility that housed 2.6 million square feet of existing exhibit halls across four buildings prior to the project. The new section includes about 459,000 square feet of exhibition space, 140,750 square feet of meeting/banquet space, a 103,750-square-foot ballroom (one of the largest in the country), as well as food and support service spaces. Completed in August 2007, the project required connecting the existing McCormick Place complex with pedestrian and vehicular bridges and modifying an existing parking garage and conference center. The new facility also includes an elevated service roadway between the existing truck-marshalling facility at the South Hall and exhibition center. A key challenge was keeping all the various organizations involved and on the same page. “Design and construction of the building on a fast track (the deadline for completion was just over 51 months) required an unprecedented degree of communication and cooperation between MPEA, Mc4West, the city of Chicago and the state of Illinois along with their many regulatory agencies,” says Carl Gergits, Epstein’s project director for the McCormick Place West Expansion project. The expansion required nearly 250 separate permits for work, ranging from lane closures to relocation of an historic façade to the main permit for the convention center, Gergits says. Specific staff members were dedicated by the contractor, development manager and design team to manage and guide the project through a multitude of review processes. Another big challenge was overcoming cultural differences between contractors and designers. This was accomplished by implementing design and construction teams. “Traditional conflicts Carl Gergits, A. Epstein and Sons International, Inc. between quality of design and cost of construction became outmoded by integrating the builders in the design process and the designers in the purchasing and construction process,” explains Gergits. The expansion enables McCormick Place to remain the largest exhibition facility in the United States. n The massive West Expansion project at Chicago’s McCormick Place Convention Center adds new exhibition space, meeting/ banquet space and a new ballroom. January / February 2009 enGIneerInG InC. 23
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