On the drawing board: High-grade construction

When the Community College of Southern Nevada's Telecom Building opens next year, it will provide desperately needed classroom space for the college's growing number of engineering and computer students.

Newly fashioned labs, lecture halls and studios will showcase cutting-edge, collegiate architecture in a two-story design on the Cheyenne campus in North Las Vegas.

The idea was to blend practicality with looks, according to Bob Gilbert, planning director for the college.

"We've gotten a lot of feedback from the community that says our campus has a `downgraded' look to it," he said. "So, we need to upgrade this campus, and I think JMA has done a great job of doing that."

JMA Architecture Studios was selected from among five other firms to design the project, an 82,000-square-foot building that they conceptualized with a palette of limestone and a composition of stucco and glass as the basic materials.

The approach distinguishes the Cheyenne campus from its sister campus on West Charleston Boulevard, according to Tom Schoeman, president of JMA.

"The Charleston campus is more of a stucco, sandstone and glass combination, and it is highly color saturated. The Cheyenne campus' color palette will be more neutral in keeping with the concept of higher education."

The Nevada Legislature granted the college $19 million for the project, while the Community College of Southern Nevada Foundation raised $1 million. Construction started June 23 and will require about 12 to 14 months; an "aggressive" schedule, Gilbert said, citing the institution's urgent need for the facility.

Also quickening the construction time is the use of the design-build concept which, in this instance, has the architect working for the contractor rather than for the owner. In 2001, Nevada law was changed to allow for a design-build delivery, instead of a design-bid-build delivery, which has the contractor and the architect working as separate entities for the owner.

The construction time may have taken as long as 30 months under the design-bid-build concept, according to Gilbert. Both he and Schoeman believe the design-build concept is key to construction of this type.

"It's the way the casinos are built -- you can start construction prior to completion of a set of drawings," Gilbert said. "But most importantly, you have a single source of responsibility: the contractor is responsible for everything, and that eliminates the lawsuits."

Martin-Harris Construction is the contractor. The firm's past educational efforts have included the Boyd School of Law, Rogich Middle School, and Winterheimer-Staton Elementary School, which was another collaboration with JMA, a firm whose other credits include the International Gaming Institute and the Desert Research Institute, both at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

As envisioned by the architects, the Telecom Building will attempt to reproduce a "real world work environment" with its classroom labs, a cyclorama (cylindrical) studio, a television production facility and a main lobby that will feature an "exhibit component" with telecommunications history and development.

"Technology will be strongly expressed in the building," Schoeman said.

"When you go into the lobby, the primary control room will be visible to the public so you can look through these glass walls and see what they're teaching."

He also said a rooftop "satellite" instruction area, where students can participate in disassembly and "understand the technology associated with the transmission systems of telecommunications," is in the planning stage. Its construction will depend on budget considerations.

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