Michigan Hall of Justice, Lansing, Mich.

   It sounds like a virtually impossible challenge, and yet those involved with the Michigan Hall of Justice project in Lansing, Mich., say that, thanks to outstanding teamwork from the top down, they’re all proud of the work.
   Even had the project not come in on time and on budget, the chance to create a new home for the Michigan Supreme Court, the state Court of Appeals and the state court administrative office would’ve made the project special to many of the participants. That’s certainly what caught the eye of the justice group of Spillis Candela DMJM in Coral Gables, Fla.
   “This is a one-of-a-kind, once-in-a-lifetime building, and I can say that without exaggerating,” says Enrique Macia, project designer for Spillis Candela. “There are only 50 state supreme courts in the United States, and most of them have already been built. This is particularly unique in that it’s a free-standing building designed specifically for this purpose.”
   Until the 1960s, the Michigan Supreme Court held its sessions in the state capitol building until space considerations prompted an eviction. The state high court, along with the appeals court and court administrative offices, ended up filling office space in different areas of Lansing.
   Then, in the late 1990s, the Michigan Legislature funded separate facility combining the three entities. Robert Hall, AIA, manager of the project for the Michigan Department of Management and Budget (which technically owns state facilities) says there are several reasons for a new facility.
   “It was a matter of showing they would be able to save operations costs by consolidating in one facility,” he says. “And, there was a feeling that, by having its own building, the Supreme Court would be on an equal footing with the executive and legislative branches.”
   While financial support for the Hall of Justice might have taken decades to develop, there was never any real question of where such a building would go. A master plan from more than 70 years ago showed a five-block Capital Mall, with the State Capitol at one end.
   “The master plan showed the location for a judiciary building at the foot of the mall,” says Hall. “They always had that site in mind; it was just a matter of doing it.”
   With funding of $87 million approved for the project, including $70 million for construction, Hall says the state launched its building process by issuing a request for proposals (RFP).
   In deciding to respond to the RFP, Spillis Candela’s Macia says officials there felt a team approach would give the firm the best chance of being selected.
   “We had some discussions with Albert Kahn Associates Inc. (AKA),” he says. “They seemed to be the perfect match with our firm and they had a local presence and experience with projects of this size and complexity. We also teamed up with Justice Planning Associates, which is one of the premier court programming and planning firms in the country.”
   It was a good choice of team members. After being among five firms invited to interview with state officials, the partners were selected for the job based on their qualifications.
   John Enkemann Jr., vice president and chief operations officer for Detroit-based AKA and project principal for the Hall of Justice project, says the architects, led by Justice Planning Associates, began their work by investigating the existing facilities used by the three entities and projecting their future needs.
   “Once we went through and analyzed their spaces and programs, we started to configure the building,” says Enkemann. “We also started to analyze the existing construction on the mall and tried to come up with a design that was sympathetic to, and within the same context as, the adjacent buildings.”
   Ultimately, the designers created a six-story building of approximately 281,000 ft². There was little question as to a material for the structure’s exterior; both Macia and Enkemann say the answer came from the façades of the buildings lining the mall.
   “Those buildings are all clad in limestone,” says Macia. “The capitol building is a sandstone, but it’s a similar color – a little more yellow than the limestone and a little warmer. We also felt that because of the importance of the building it needed to be stone to give the Supreme Court a feeling of permanence.”
   Even before the design documents were complete, the project went to bid. State project manager Hall says that’s not normal practice, but in this case it was tried because of the 30-month time frame on the project.
   Again, the general contractor was chosen from a list of companies prequalified by the state. Anthony Pecchio, project manager for the Lansing, Mich.-based The Christman Company, says the firm had more than a profit motive in mind.
   “We did the last major restoration project on the State Capitol, and we’ve had a hand in every project in the Capital Mall complex,” he says. “With our history with the state, we felt it was important to us to be involved in this project.”
   Still, bidding the job with only 80 percent of the construction documents complete was a challenging process, Pecchio says.
   “At the point 100 percent of the design documents were issued, there was a reconciliation of the added scope in the design bid,” he explains. “Fortunately, all the stakeholders worked together so extraordinarily well at each level that we found ways to make it all work out.”
   Dan Schiffer, president of Schiffer Mason Contractors, the Holt, Mich.-based firm that did the exterior of the building, agrees that it was a daunting way to bid a project.
   “It added an element of extra care and consideration to our quotation and preparation for the bid,” he says. “We couldn’t simply quantify the drawings the architect had put together. We had to envision the correct way to complete the job and key in the architect’s and owner’s intentions, and create an estimate that included the amount of money to complete the job.”
   Fortunately, he says, years of experience working with both AKA and Christman gave him a level of trust that enabled him to feel comfortable going ahead with his bid.
   “With AKA, it was a matter of knowing their style,” Schiffer says. “Every architect has a personality and you get to know what they like and don’t like, and how they detail and what they’ll accept. I’ve got 30 years experience with Christman, and it’s the same deal. Their main goal is to create a win-win situation with everybody.”
   The atypical process also put the masons into the job much earlier than normal.
   “Because the drawings weren’t complete, the steel contractor was in the same boat as us,” says Schiffer. “Because the masonry wasn’t detailed, they didn’t know what steel was needed. We had to jump into the job three or four months in advance of what we normally would, to get the shop drawings and stone drawings done so we could give them to the steel company, and then they could detail the steel we needed so we could anchor to the building.”
   That meant Schiffer had to hire its own engineer to design the anchoring system using the building envelope created by the architects. Ultimately, by working with the architects and their engineers, the masons developed a system for the job.
   Christman’s Pecchio says one thing that made that process easier was a requirement that several of the subs do mock-ups of the project. Rather than having each do a small one, with Christman’s help a larger one was designed and built while the site was still being excavated.
   “We put in an inside corner and an outside corner and a window jam with a windowsill,” Pecchio explains. “That gave us quite a bit of upfront knowledge on the complications and constructability issues we’d find. Everybody came and looked at it and we were able to resolve a lot of issues quite early.”
   Schiffer’s other job, to find a supplier for the approximately 14,000 decorative-cut limestone panels used on the building’s exterior, was considerably easier.
   “The drawings were pretty clear that they wanted a buff-colored Indiana limestone and there’s only one place in the world to get that,” he says.
   George James of Bedford, Ind.-based Indiana Limestone Co. says the job presented several challenges, some of them delays created by the atypical engineering schedule. That led the supplier to compress the fabrication schedule from time to time while still keeping a steady flow of product headed to Lansing.
   James says the other challenges came from the order itself.
   “We employed a circle planer to put profiles on radial patterns in different specific types of stones we made for them,” he says. “There were some challenges to that. And, the selection of stone from this particular quarry presented some challenges because some of the pieces were pretty good-sized, and imperfections weren’t allowed.”
   The largest pieces for the project – some 14’ in length – were incorporated into the arcade at the front of the building.
   Installing the façade offered still other challenges. Christman’s Pecchio says the masonry contractor was actually coming up with ways to hang the limestone even as the work was in progress. One issue came from the presence of underground parking structures on both the east and west sides of the building.   
   “We built the one to the east as we were constructing the building,” Pecchio says. “The one to the west was built after Schiffer finished that elevation of stone. We dug it, poured the foundations for the building itself, filled it, hung the limestone and then dug the west side again to build the parking deck.”
   Schiffer was under pressure to finish the elevation quickly to allow work on the west parking structure to begin. Working around the construction of both underground garages led him to be extremely creative in completing the dome that tops the middle of the roof.
   Schiffer says one option would be to utilize two 250-ton cranes capable of reaching over the parking structures. However, such an approach would be slow, awkward and possibly compromise the safety of those working on the job. Instead, he opted to design a small roof crane capable of a 30’ lift of up to 2,500 pounds.
   “I got with the architect and engineer to find out the load the roof could handle, then found a company in Akron, Ohio, to build two of these,” he says. “We used a crane to set the stone on the north side of the roof and the south side of the roof, and then these little cranes set it on the dome.”
   That solution allowed Schiffer to finish the dome a month ahead of schedule, which allowed Christman to get an earlier start on the parking ramps. Schiffer says the cranes also paid for themselves, although he may never need them for another job.
   The challenges faced by the interior-stone subcontractor, Booms Stone of Redford, Mich., came later in the project, but were just as daunting.
   Spillis Candela’s Macia, who was responsible for the interior design of the project, says that, as with the exterior of the Hall of Justice, the most dramatic use of interior stone drew its inspiration from one of its neighbors.
   “The State Capitol, on its inside, is very ornate,” Macia explains. “The floors are a black-and-white checkerboard pattern. What we chose for our two round lobbies – on the first floor and on the sixth floor, where the Supreme Court is located – is a black-and-white spiral, done in a diamond pattern. We think it’s a more-interesting and -exciting pattern, but it ties you in to the Capitol.”
   As with Schiffer, Booms has a lengthy history of working on jobs with Christman. Company president Rich Booms says in the case of the spiral floors, one of his biggest challenges was obtaining the stone specified by the architects.
   “The design architect specified a select grade of Callacata marble that has a very fine gold vein in it,” he explains. “Unfortunately, the quarry only produces about 10 percent of its yield with this fine vein in it. We had to make three trips to Italy as a result.”
   Booms says the first trip was simply an exploratory one to see what could be produced. The second was to inspect the initial quarrying to see that it met the architect’s criteria. The final visit was to see the finished project laid out prior to shipment to the United States.
   “We didn’t want to get this job here and then say, ‘Oops, wrong material,’” he says.
   To go with the Callacata select marble, the architect specified Black Pearl granite quarried in Angola. It was shipped as blocks to Italy, and then cut to specification by the Italian fabricator using a waterjet.
   The cut pieces, 3/4” thick, were then laid out for Booms’ inspection.
   “Because it’s an intricate pattern and with 1/16” joints, there was absolutely no room for error,” he says. “They laid it out dry and we checked every piece before it was picked back up, crated and shipped to us with piece numbers.”
   While Booms estimates 80 percent of the flooring in the building is carpet, the same Callacata marble was used as a focal point in the entry lobbies, elevator lobbies and atriums on most floors.
   “There are a significant number of reception desks and secretarial stations that have the marble tops as well,” he says. “And, the bathroom vanities on every floor are made out of the Black Pearl granite.”
   Spillis Candela’s Macia says black granite is also utilized where the building meets the ground, and the 6’ retaining walls on the exterior plaza are faced with black granite. The plaza also has granite pavers and granite treads in a flamed finish.
   “The palette was very consistent with the buff limestone and the black granite,” he says. “The black served as a solid, neutral base, and it tied into the spiraling checkerboards on the inside.”
   Despite those other uses of natural stone, the installation of the two spiral floors proved to be the major challenge for a three-member crew.
   “Normally we’d have a bigger crew,” Booms says. “The reason we used three men is that these guys were very dedicated, they knew this was a once-in-a-lifetime job, and they were very committed to doing the highest-quality work they could.”
   The installation crew utilized a thick-set mortar bed, reinforced with fiberglass and latex additive, which Booms calls, “cheap insurance for longevity.” And, he and Christman’s Pecchio agree that crew was among the last to leave the building.
   “Toward the end Christman wanted us to put more men on the job to hurry it up and get it done,” says Booms. “I asked them to leave the three craftsmen who started the job on it through the end, because I could guarantee the highest level of quality and commitment by those three.”
   “We were literally working our way out of the building with the stone flooring in the main lobby,” Pecchio explains. “We asked Rich to bring in a second crew to make sure it was done on time, but rather than bring in a second crew, they just worked more days and longer hours. We still needed the floor to be done on time and they made it happen.”
   And, although it had been initially planned for an early 2003 completion, the Michigan Hall of Justice was ready for its revised finish date. The state Supreme Court opened its regular session in the building in October 2002.
   All those involved in the project agree with Macia’s assessment that this was a once-in-a-lifetime project that wouldn’t have gone nearly as smoothly without good teamwork at all levels.
   “We were very pleased with the outcome of the project and the quality of the project,” says AKA’s Enkemann. “A lot of that was due to the relationships among the team members. Everybody supported each other and cooperated with each other and it was a unique project from that standpoint.”
   “I’m pretty young in my career, but it’s not often you build something of this magnitude,” says Christman’s Pecchio. “It’s a really exciting building, and it’s not like we’re soon going to have the opportunity to build another one.”
   Perhaps best of all, the state’s Hall says the building’s new tenants – a major part of Michigan’s judiciary – are thrilled with their new home. Not only are they proud of the building, but it’s done a good job of meeting their needs.
   “Like with any large project, you run into problems because we’re building a unique building, not 100,000 Buicks,” Hall concludes. “Fortunately, we had a quality set of individuals for the design portion of the job and for the construction portion of the job. We all worked well together, and that’s why the project came out to be so successful.”

Client: State of Michigan Department of Management and Budget, Lansing, Mich.
Designers:  Albert Kahn Associates Inc., Detroit (architect of record); Spillis Candela DMJM, Coral Gables, Fla. (design architect); Justice Planning Associates Inc. Columbia, S.C. (judicial planning and programming)
General Contractor: The Christman Company, Lansing, Mich.
Masonry Contractor: Schiffer Mason Contractors, Holt. Mich.
Marble and Granite Contractor: Booms Stone, Redford, Mich.
Limestone Supplier: Indiana Limestone Co., Bedford, Ind.

This article first appeared in the January 2005 print edition of Stone Business. ©2005 Western Business Media Inc.