The Cable Center, Denver

   But, how does stone fit in with a facility that’s all about the technology of tomorrow? It’s a challenge that designers – along with builders, masons and stone suppliers – met in providing a sharp and sensible look.
   The Cable Center’s ultimate goal is certainly a combination of the old and the new. Part museum, part educational institution, its mission is to celebrate broadband telecommunications technology and programming, according to William W. Riker, the facility’s senior vice president for operations and CTO.
   “The cable industry doesn’t get a lot of credit for anything other than rate increases,” says Riker. “However, it’s created a wealth of programming options that weren’t available before cable came along, and the technology we’ve developed not only allows us to deliver more television programming, but we’ve developed high-speed data connections, telephony, video-on-demand and other services that are of value to the consumer.”
   Approximately 15 years ago, a number of industry pioneers decided to create a venue to preserve cable’s history. From that, the concept expanded to become more educational in focus.
   Today, Riker says the educational program has three different constituencies: providing training to members of the industry; academia and experimenting with distance learning programs; and educating consumers on cable’s contribution to society.
   “There was always an idea that we would have one site because we house a lot of archival material here,” Riker says. “We have a television studio and a theater and we premier high-definition original programs before they’re aired on networks such as HBO, Discovery and ESPN. We also have board and meeting rooms for industry groups to come together.”
   To take the ideas for a building and make them a reality, Cable Center officials called on Denver-based RNL Design. Carl Hole, the project manager, says RNL first became involved with the center in its early planning phase.
   “We helped them identify the program spaces they were looking for, where it should go as far as site selection and original budget information,” Hole says. “It was several years before we really got into the design stage of the project.”
   Because of RNL’s extensive knowledge of the client’s needs, it’s probably not surprising that the Cable Center turned to the architectural firm to develop the actual design. And, the firm’s understanding of the client’s program and the use of different spaces was key, Hole says.
   “They wanted to approach the whole building as an integrated space,” he explains. “They wanted to make the whole building part of the museum and exhibit experience. If you go to a meeting there, you’ll be walking by some of the exhibit spaces. They really wanted the building to be interactive. The design evolved from an understanding of how they were going to use the spaces.”
   Ultimately, the RNL architects came up with a design that Hole describes as, “kind of an ‘L’ shape with a quarter circle between the legs, which is the atrium.”
   Three stories tall. with some 74,000 ft² of enclosed space, the exterior appearance of the structure was a major concern due to its presence on the University of Denver campus.
   The Cable Center’s Riker says RNL was told to work closely with university architects on the project, which meant the building would have to be stone.
   “The university has a building next door to us, the Ritchie Center, which is done in sandstone with Indiana limestone detail and accents,” Riker explains. “We didn’t want to use the same material. We looked at marble, and it was just too expensive. So, we ended up going to Indiana limestone, variegated to give it some interest.”
   “Neither group wanted the building to look like a sore thumb on the campus,” says RNL’s Hole. “We related to their existing architecture, but our building has a more-modern spin. We have a more-modern volume to the space and material. And, the comments we’ve gotten is that it looks like it fits within the campus context, but it looks unique.”
   To build the design, The Cable Center hired Adolfson & Peterson, with offices in Denver as well as Minneapolis, Phoenix, Dallas and Wausau, Wis. Rich Allison, senior vice president with the Denver office, says the museum aspects of the project were a first for the company, although its Minneapolis office has done other museum work.
   “This was a negotiated project,” Allison says. “The owner interviewed several contractors, and we were fortunate to be the ones selected. We performed all the pre-construction estimates, then bid the project out to various subcontractors to come up with a guaranteed maximum price.”
   Because of the limestone exterior of the building, Allison says the list of masonry contractors interviewed for the job was quite short. “We were looking for experts in installing this material,” he says. “Because of the exterior skin, we had to select the very best.”
   Chris Ferguson, onsite project manager for Adolfson & Peterson, agrees that the masonry contractor needed to be especially skilled.
   “There was a lot of curvature to the building,” Ferguson says. “Plus, the limestone is a very high-end material that takes a great deal of care.”
   The contractor found its experts in Bret Terry Masonry of Littleton, Colo. Owner Bret Terry first learned the trade from his bricklayer-father; later, he spent 10 years working for another contractor on large commercial projects. However, he says his first real experience with cut stone didn’t come until the late 1980s.
   “Limestone wasn’t used too much in the 1970s and ‘80s because the economy wasn’t that good,” he says. “But, over the past 15 years, cut stone has been an element in almost every project I’ve looked to do, and it’s usually cut limestone, cut granite, dimensional-type material, veneer applications.”
   Terry thinks he was awarded the job because he was able to make a good presentation to RNL and Adolfson & Peterson, and then once he had the job he was able to figure out what it would take to make his concept work.
   “A lot of it is just figuring out how we’re going to handle the pieces and handle them productively so we’re not going to use these guys’ backs up,” he says.
   One of the aspects of the masonry work that both the contractors and architects commented favorably upon was Terry’s use of telescoping platforms to allow his crew of eight masons and an equal number of laborers to quickly install the veneer.
   Most of the exterior veneer panels are approximately 2’8” X 4’8”. Terry offered a value engineering credit for reducing the thickness of the material from 4” to 3”.
   “It didn’t impact us that much production-wise, but from a materials-cost standpoint, Indiana limestone at 3” thick is more than adequate,” he says.
   However, some of the job’s earliest stonework wasn’t with limestone, but granite from Cold Spring Granite of Cold Spring, Minn., which serves as the base of the building, among other uses.
   “It’s part of good detailing,” says RNL’s Hole. “If you’re using limestone, you don’t want it to come in contact with a horizontal surface where water might wick into it. That’s where we started to use the granite, but it also influenced us to have a granite stair to get into the building, a granite stage area, that type of thing.”
   For a limestone supplier, the architects selected Bybee Stone Co. of Elletsville, Ind. William Bybee ties the selection of his company into the building’s presence on the University of Denver campus.
   “We’ve been involved with several University of Denver jobs over the past years,” he says. “The architects for the university are very much into using Indiana limestone in conjunction with some of the sandstones they utilize from Utah. That’s how we came into this particular project.”
   Along with its use on the exterior, the architects also chose to bring limestone inside the building through decorative items such as the windowsills, as well as in areas such as the atrium and the boardroom. Terry says those presented their own challenges as far as access.
   “There are some absolutely huge pieces of limestone on the interior as you enter the theatre that were very challenging,” he says. “They were longer than quarry blocks typically run. In one instance, we had an 18’ piece of stone that was 4’ tall and 3’ thick. Getting a piece that size out here and not damage it was a major accomplishment.”
   Terry says one of his goals is to move more into the design side of things to better explain the practical realities of masonry to architects early in the design process. However, both Hole and Bybee say the level of communication between them and Terry helped make the job successful.
   “We worked with them as we finished detailing the building, which was very helpful,” says RNL’s Hole. “We were able to understand how they were planning on erecting the limestone so we could change our details to help them out and they could help us detail features we might want to achieve. It was a good collaboration.”
   “Good information is an absolute key to any project to go well,” says Bybee. “It’s especially important on projects that have unusual detail, such as this one. All we can do is duplicate what information we receive.”
   That cooperation certainly contributed to a final result that those involved say is quite a success. Adolfson & Peterson’s Ferguson calls it a “Wow” building, and Allison agrees.
   “It’s a beautiful building; it really is,” he says.
   “The client was pleased, very much so,” says Hole. “It’s very successful on a whole bunch of different fronts.”

Client: The Cable Center, Denver
Architect: RNL Design, Denver
General Contractor: Adolfson & Peterson, Denver
Masonry Contractor: Bret Terry Masonry, Littleton, Colo.
Stone Suppliers: Bybee Stone Co., Elletsville, Ind., and Cold Spring Granite, Cold Spring, Minn.

This article first appeared in the July 2004 print edition of Stone Business. ©2004 Western Business Media Inc.