Oklahoma City University has selected Frankfurt Short Bruza to redevelop the former Oklahoma High School into an educational facility for its School of Law.
“Our team will collaborate with university officials to ensure generations of future Oklahoma City University law students experience a first-class educational environment,” said Fred Schmidt, principal at FSB.
Built in 1910, the former high school was purchased by Southwestern Bell in the 1980s and converted to office space.
“Oklahoma High School was originally designed by Solomon Andrew Layton, who also designed the Oklahoma state Capitol,” said Jason Holuby, project manager at FSB. “We want to make the renovations necessary to provide Oklahoma City University with a top-notch law school while preserving the overall design of the current building. The function, layout and technology will change, but the look will stay consistent with the current style.”
Renovation plans include converting office space to classroom space and adding a courtroom, faculty, staff and administrative offices, a venue for meetings and events and a two-story library with cafe and collaboration rooms.
Oklahoma City University’s School of Law currently occupies 110,000 square feet in four buildings on the university’s campus. Moving the school downtown will increase space to more than 140,000 square feet.
The new location will be within walking distance of a large legal community, including the Oklahoma County Courthouse, the U.S. Federal Building and Courthouse and several law firms.
FROM STAFF REPORTS • Published: June 1, 2012 12:00 AM CDT
BRAGGS — Gov. Mary Fallin will formally dedicate the Thunderbird Chapel at the Oklahoma National Guard’s Camp Gruber on Saturday.
During the dedication event, soldiers, donors, volunteers and state military leaders will tour the completed chapel for the first time.
Announced in September, the project aimed to establish a spiritual center at Camp Gruber for the Oklahoma National Guard and other military service members and their families.
Private donations and volunteers under the direction of Fallin were the driving forces behind construction of the chapel.
Camp Gruber has not had a chapel since 1947.
The new chapel includes chaplain offices and a fellowship hall, which will help broaden its services to include weddings, family events and community activities.
The chapel was designed by Glenn Short, principal architect for Frankfurt-Short-Bruza Associates.
A majority of the construction work was done in November, when hundreds of volunteers worked to erect the chapel structure in just 16 days.
Gerry Shepherd, president and chief executive officer of Oklahoma Roofing and Sheet Metal, spearheaded the chapel construction.
The construction effort also included World Mission Builders, the Southern Baptist General Convention and other groups across the state.
More funds needed
Todd Pauley, chairman of the Thunderbird Chapel executive committee, said hundreds of hours of labor and hundreds of thousands of dollars of in-kind services and materials already have been given to support the Thunderbird Chapel. He said in order to finalize the funding for the chapel and honor outstanding commitments, an additional $400,000 is still required.
In addition to the chapel building, a memorial garden is being planned, with an estimated cost of $100,000, to recognize Oklahoma National Guard soldiers.
OKLAHOMA CITY – A new set of walls designed to make it tougher to get into prison has gone up at the Eddie Warrior Correctional Center in Taft as part of a statewide prison chapel project.
It’s been open for less than a month, but Glenn Short, who helped design the chapel, said 14 baptisms already have been held inside the brick structure in Taft. And, he said there’s a waiting list for more at the minimum-security women’s facility.
Short’s architectural and engineering firm, Frankfurt-Short-Bruza Associates of Oklahoma City, is collaborating with World Mission Builders, led by R. Joe Wilson, and the Oklahoma Department of Corrections, to build chapels as one way to give offenders a reason to seek a better life.
The Taft chapel has 4,800 square feet, three classrooms, a library and computer lab, card shop, two offices and a 176-seat auditorium, stage and baptistry.
Including its furnishings, the chapel is valued at about $300,000. Even more impressive is what it took to put it there.
Along with dozens of inmates, the chapel was erected with the help of more than 40 volunteers from six states, who came by motor home and stayed on the job for two weeks to install prefabricated wall components on the slab and complete the interior.
“They raised the bar, or the building, so to speak,” Short said.
Area businesses also got involved by providing more than $130,000 in donated goods and services, while churches and individuals donated more than $100,000.
In addition to offering nondenominational services, the chapel was built to provide needed space for educational and counseling programs designed to help offenders stay out of jail once they are released.
The programs, which also have long waiting lists, provide a range of reintegration services, including career training, education and drug and mental health treatment. Oklahoma’s 26-percent recidivism rate among offenders is below the national average, but state budget cuts have impacted community re-entry programs lately, along with the need to replace chapels with more prison beds as the prison population expands.
“We don’t begin to address all the needs of offenders,” Justin Jones, director of the state’s prison system, said. “Some finish their entire incarceration and never go through their biggest need area.”
That’s why he welcomed the chapel construction program, provided security concerns could be overcome.
“We knew that for quite a few years that our chapel space was insufficient,” Jones said. “Most were built on grounds when they were a third of their present size, and we never had funding for expanding the areas for religious services.”
With a goal of building 15 chapels in Oklahoma, Short said his company already has started designing chapels for the Dick Connor Correctional Center in Hominy and the Mack Alford Correctional Center in Stringtown.
“It’s a longtime commitment that involves a lot of benevolence and community contribution,” said Short, who got involved with World Mission Builders after he met Wilson, the founder, at church.
While Short’s firm does other work for DOC, he said the chapel project fits their calling as faith-based owners.
“All companies have responsibilities to their community and society,” Short said. “This has a greater return because it involves the lives of these people.”
EDMOND — The skyline has changed dramatically during the past two years, as a nearly $37 million public safety center building has risen out of a deep, muddy hole in downtown Edmond.
The more than 70,000-square-foot building on the southeast corner of First Street and Littler Avenue will soon be the home of police headquarters, public safety communications and emergency management operations.
Two buildings make up the public safety center complex. A 15,000-square-foot building near 33rd Street and Broadway will be the police department’s crime lab and provide storage for evidence and vehicles.
Dream come true
The project has been a dream in the minds of many people for more than 10 years, while city employees continued to work in crowded and uncomfortable quarters, enduring basement flooding and a situation that put victims and their attackers too close together during interrogation.
“Space needs drove it all,” said Deputy Police Chief Steve Thompson. “It started with the need for more jail space and it grew into looking at not only needs for the police department, but also for communications and emergency management. We are all cramped into very small spaces.”
Thompson was assigned full time to work with the architects and contractors during the construction.
“There are many facets to the need,” said Matt Stillwell, public safety communications and emergency management operations director. “Number one is space. We currently house our operation for communications and emergency management in two separate locations. The current working conditions have been less than ideal for quite some time.
“Working in an area that is prone to flood is not only unpleasant, but is also a potential safety hazard. Our folks can’t wait to get out of that environment.”
City officials will hold a dedication at 10 a.m. Thursday. People can tour the three-story downtown building after the ceremony.
Move-in will start Monday.
The cost
Voters in October 2011 approved a half-cent sales tax for five years to pay for the complex.
The first attempt to raise money to build the center failed in 2008 when voters rejected a larger, more expensive center to be paid for with a 10-year property tax increase.
Video: Play this Video Edmond’s public safety building new look for downtown
As of this week, the city has spent or encumbered $36.95 million for the project. That figure includes all change orders, engineering, furniture, fixtures, equipment, artwork and parking.
The original contract to construct the two buildings was for $27.47 million.
The city has collected through the middle of September $27.36 million from the half-cent sales tax, which ends in April 2017.
Voters also agreed to borrow money from a trust fund from the sale of Edmond Memorial Hospital to help pay for the center.
“With the assistance of the $6,881,060 hospital trust fund revenue, we have been able to pay as you go,” said Ross VanderHamm, city clerk and finance director.
Money borrowed from the hospital trust fund will be paid back after all project expenses are paid. VanderHamm anticipates that will be by the end of 2016.
The jail
The historical-style downtown building, made from concrete, steel and metal, is expected to take care of the city’s needs for 25 years.
The 14-cell jail — 9,932 square feet — is in the basement. It will house 38 inmates.
The old jail across the street at 23 E First St. was crowded and not safe for detention officers working in the 748-square-foot holding facility, city officials said.
The new jail is equipped with a master control area where detention officers can see all the prisoners.
“The entire detention center was designed with security and safety in mind,” Thompson said. “Even the glass in the area is designed through reflective glass and lighting so that the inmate cannot see out, but the staff can see them very well.”
The new jail, to be called the Edmond Detention Center, is one of the the only such facilities in the state lighted with natural sunlight. The light will be funneled down a tube.
“We are required to have so much candle power in each cell,” Thompson said. “Light was a priority for the staff also to help with morale.”
The lobby
Artwork displayed in the three-story lobby and outside the entrance is one of a kind.
A bronze sculpture of a police officer in an Edmond uniform, sitting on a bench with a young boy and his dog kneeling on the ground sits outside the entrance. The sculpture is called “Edmond’s Finest — Edmond’s Future.”
Inside, two abstract paintings hang where they can be seen at night from the outside. The 10-foot by 16-foot paintings are by artist Dennis Johnson and cost $26,000.
“The lobby is going to be really nice for the community, and then of course, the exterior of the building is phenomenal.” Thompson said. “It is in my opinion the most attractive building in Edmond.”
Communication center
The communication center will be on the third floor, where employees can see outside. Before, they were in a basement with no windows.
“The windows will improve morale and employee retention,” Stillwell said. “They also will have the option to sit or stand at their new work stations.
“The communications dispatch furniture is very exciting. Not only does it create an ideal working environment for our communications professionals, ergonomics and individual heating, lighting and air, but also a great environment to house our technology.”
In the event of a tornado, dispatch operations can be moved to the basement, Stillwell said.
Crime lab
The new crime lab and storage areas allow space to work with state-of-the-art equipment.
“We will have all the modern technology that a crime lab should have today,” Thompson said. “We have a main lab, an alternate light source lab, a digital fingerprint lab and a vehicle exam bay lab plus space to actually work with the right tools to make it safe like ventilation snorkels to get odors and chemicals away from the lab technicians.
The mobile storage unit can hold up to 1.2 million pounds of evidence that will be coded for finding certain item at ease. Each unit is 16 feet tall by 35 feet wide.
“The evidence storage or property room is enormous,” Thompson said. “It will meet our storage needs for many, many years to come.”
Heating and cooling
In downtown Edmond, 20 miles of black PVC pipe are hidden underground and headed to the public safety center to make way for geothermal systems. One hundred and one wells will heat and cool the center.
In a geothermal system, water is circulated through underground plastic pipes.
During the winter, the fluid collects heat from the earth and carries it through the system and into the building.
During the summer, the system reverses itself to pull heat from the building, carrying it through the system and placing it in the ground.
A geothermal system is cost-effective, reliable, sustainable and environmentally friendly, city leaders said. The system cost $1.25 million.
Brian Sauer, principal and licensed mechanical engineer for Frankfurt Short Bruza, said the public safety center will recoup the investment two or three times faster because the building will operate 24 hours a day. The average building has a payoff in the five- to 10-year range.
“This building will pay back faster because the building never really sleeps,” Sauer said. “A typical office building runs eight hours and gets a break. This building will get a payback in a couple of years.”
The future building of the Air Reserve Personnel Center at Buckley Air Force Base received the Merit Award in the concept design category at the 2009 United States Air Force Design Awards Program. ARPC is scheduled to move to Buckley Air Force Base by 2011. (Courtesy graphic)
DENVER — The future home of the Air Reserve Personnel Center was winner of the Merit Award in the Concept Design Category at the 2009 U.S. Air Force Design Awards Program.
“This award further validates that employees can take pride in the future of ARPC,” said Capt. Paul Hubenthal, ARPC liaison to the construction project. “We’re building a new facility that has the latest and greatest in design and technology.”
Nineteen winners were named out of 87 entrants in this year’s awards program. Awards were given for first, second and third place, or Honor, Merit and Citation, respectively.
Facilities that are entered in the concept design category are judged on the degree to which programming requirements were met, uniqueness of the design solution, constructability, and compatibility with other facilities on the installation.
ARPC is scheduled to move to Buckley Air Force Base by 2011. Groundbreaking for the new building is expected later this year.
Design drawings of the building have been shown at commander’s calls, and employees voted in January for the color scheme that will be used for the building’s interior.
“We are extremely pleased with the diversity and level of design excellence associated with the 2009 winners,” said David Duncan, senior architect and program manager of the U.S. Air Force Design Awards Program, in an e-mail to the winners.
The awards program is managed by the Air Force Center for Engineering and the Environment, and has recognized and promoted design excellence of Air Force facilities since 1976.
Along with Governor Dannel P. Malloy, Senator Richard Blumenthal, Congressman Joe Courtney, and Lt. Gov. Nancy Wyman, members of the Connecticut National Guard officially broke ground on a $14.3 million fuel cell and corrosion control facility on August 20, at the Bradley Air National Guard Base in East Granby, home of the @103AW. The 29,600-square foot facility will provide specialized hangar space for fuel cell maintenance and corrosion treatment for the C-130 Hercules aircraft. is one of many ongoing projects to transform Bradley Air National Guard Base after transitioning to a fleet of C-130s in 2013.
“With each project start we move closer to fulfilling our responsibility to provide Connecticut’s National Guard with the best possible training, equipment and facilities necessary to ensure mission accomplishment.” said Maj. Gen. Thaddeus J. Martin, Adjutant General and Commander of the Connecticut National Guard.
Construction of the facility is expected to be completed in October of 2016. Thanks to everyone who is working to make this possible. Special thanks to the City of OKC, Inasmuch Foundation, Gaylord Foundation, 7-Eleven and the Leeman Family Foundation.
Frankfurt Short Bruza Associates, P.C. is the project architect, and Lippert Bros., Inc. is the general contractor.
General Contractor: None
Architect: FSB
Flooring Features: Shaw Carpet Tiles: Archomatic Tile 18 x36, Black;
Color Form Tile 9” x 36”, Mystic Grey, Disappear, Charming, Inspire, Frolic, Puzzle, Blaze and Auroa.
Pinnacle cove base 4”, Charcoal.
5th Floor Training Room
FSB is a nationally recognized architectural, engineering and planning firm whose mission is to provide thoughtful and creative solutions that result in quality projects for their clients. One of the factors contributing to their success is their commitment to also provide a thoughtful, inspirational and collaborative space for their staff to create such solutions.
Bentley Flooring was fortunate to get an inside view of their energizing environment when installing the new flooring for FSB’s recent “refresh” of their Oklahoma City office on the 4th and 5th floors of the Paragon Building. Several large, high-tech conference rooms provide for the interchange of ideas, as well as open work spaces wrapped in continuous windows, letting in an abundance of light and allowing limitless space for imagining.
With this renovation, FSB’s ability to collaborate is further strengthened by the addition of stand-up meeting stations and smaller traditional meeting rooms scattered throughout both floors. Each of these rooms and stations offers computer screens and all other wired technology needed for technical discussions, quick consultations or lengthier presentations. Throughout both floors, wall panels were lowered, some offices eliminated and employees within each discipline were gathered into their own distinct areas for easier communication.
We were also impressed by FSB’s serene palate of grays, blacks and charcoal inset with bold, bright bands of colors interspersed throughout the carpeted workspace. Accent colors from these bands were applied to walls and columns in the open areas.
In addition to the pleasing aesthetics, expanded café areas were installed on both floors, replacing small break areas which would only accommodate a few people. Each café features bistro-type seating, a large-screen TV, vending machines, multiple microwaves and oversized refrigerators, to accommodate the increased number of workers. These areas have become a popular place for staff to gather and for employees from different disciplines to get acquainted and build camaraderie.
Even the 4th floor restrooms were updated and refreshed.
The renovation will potentially benefit more than FSB employees. Two large conference areas were added to the fifth floor, with the capacity to hold about 40 people and 25 people respectively. These rooms are used not only for company training and client meetings, but they also are available for organizations affiliated with FSB or its employees.
Thank you, FSB, for the opportunity for Bentley Flooring to provide our services to one of our valued architectural partners.
Photographer: Robert Trawick
4th Floor Work Space & Conference Room5th Floor Lobby5th Floor Board Room5th Floor Café
Since the space race of the 1950s and 60s, politicians and economists alike have linked math and science education with the United States’ ability to compete on a future global stage. In the 1990s the National Science Foundation coined the acronym “STEM”— science, technology, engineering, math —in an effort to emphasize their co-dependence. Now a commonplace term, STEM has come to represent interdisciplinary education and the real-world application of math and science principles.
Jason Andrews, deputy code enforcement officer for the City of Langston, checks cracks in city hall that were believed to be caused by earthquakes.
OKLAHOMA CITY – Jason Andrews said he can hear an earthquake, like a large truck, before it hits. Then, he feels a wave pass through Langston’s Town Hall, passing from southeast to northwest.
“When you have a little shaker, you see small cracks that weren’t there before,” he said.
Dozens of quakes have caused minor damage at his home and at work, where he is the city’s code enforcer. He noticed another hairline crack on the Town Hall ceiling on Friday he hasn’t seen before. Scientists who study Oklahoma’s dramatic temblor increase are calling for more research on damage from lower-magnitude shaking Andrews and other residents feel.
Oklahoma Geological Survey Director Jeremy Boak said personal descriptions of events improve his agency’s research. He needs residents to report the earth’s shaking to understand how those quakes behave. The Sooner State’s temblors are likely triggered by oil and gas wastewater injection. But the motion is generally shallower than naturally occurring quakes, so seismic waves travel farther, according to national research published in October. Residents contacted Boak describing damage at their own homes, so there’s a broad perception the ground shaking could have a cumulative effect, he said. His agency is working to understand how to mitigate earthquake risk and what damage could occur.
“I think it would be good for the state to do a formal analysis,” he said. “We need to begin to make the effort to say, ‘What do we know?’”
Boak said he would like to provide a hazard assessment. But he needs structural engineers’ expertise to determine the extent of the problem. OGS recorded 960 quakes magnitude 3.0 and larger in 2015, he said. It recorded about 30 events magnitude 4 and larger. The Oklahoma Department of Transportation inspects roads and bridges within a 5-mile radius of any quake that’s a 4.0 magnitude or larger. It expands its inspection radius if any damage is identified, said spokeswoman Brenda Perry. The agency hasn’t found major damage in recent years, she said. Inspectors did find minor damage to Highway 62 after the 5.6 magnitude temblor in 2011. ODOT is working with contractor Infrastructure Engineers Inc. to review the agency’s inspection procedures. The analysis will help guide the agency to formalize a response policy for quakes, she said.
University of Oklahoma assistant professor of civil engineering Phillip Scott Harvey Jr. is one subcontractor examining ODOT’s procedures. The research team is examining the cumulative effect on state infrastructure from repeated, low-magnitude temblors, and if that could be as damaging as a large quake, he said. Harvey’s work will also provide recommendations on how far inspectors should look from earthquake epicenters.
Benjamin Wallace said there’s likely not a cumulative effect on commercial buildings. The structural engineering director at architecture and engineering firm Frankfurt Short Bruza said new structures are built to codes that include seismic hazards.
“We don’t worry about small windstorms creating cumulative damage,” Wallace said, so he wouldn’t be concerned about small quakes either.
Old, unreinforced masonry buildings may experience cracks in bricks and drywall, he said. Minor quakes, those less than magnitude 4.0, won’t cause catastrophic damage or cumulative failure to structures, he said.
Heavy structures are also more likely to receive damage. A brick spire at St. Gregory’s University was damaged in the 2011 quake near Prague. In Guthrie’s downtown, in which many buildings were built around the turn of the 20th century, those structures have been weakened over time from weather, Wallace said. Employees at several businesses in Guthrie’s historic downtown said they have seen cracks in drywall. Old buildings weren’t designed to withstand seismic forces, so they could face deterioration from minor shaking. A larger temblor could cause damage to already-weakened structures, Wallace said.
“If induced earthquakes caused a larger earthquake than was anticipated before, that would concern me,” he said.
Boak said he would like to gather a consortium of structural engineers, hydrogeologists and petroleum geologists to study and publish what is known. The state may need to take a different approach if researchers don’t find cumulative damage effects, he said.
“If we investigate and find we have a relatively limited number of cases, we may have to look at this on a case-by-case basis, rather than a huge class of property owners in Logan and Payne counties to demonstrate that damage,” he said.
Want to see information about real-time earthquakes, an online catalog search of archives, seismicity maps and statistics? Visithttp://earthquake.usgs.gov/
Property circling the city’s new public safety center at First Street and Littler Avenue will hide 20 miles of black PVC pipe that the project manager describes as looking like spaghetti running underground.
Wes Brannon, FSB Construction Administrator
“If we could see three-dimensionally into the ground, we would be scared, wouldn’t we?” said Wes Brannon, construction administration for Frankfurt Short Bruza Architects and Engineers.
The PVC pipe is part of a geothermal system where 101 wells will be used to heat and cool the new 70,000-square-foot public safety center instead of a typical heating and air conditioning system. The new home of police headquarters, the 911 communication center and emergency management operations is the third city-owned building to use a geothermal system. The Mitch Park YMCA and the Cross Timbers Public Service Center were the first two city buildings to use geothermal energy, which uses the earth’s relatively constant temperature to provide heating and cooling for residential and commercial buildings.
In Edmond’s system, water is circulated through plastic pipes buried beneath the earth’s surface. During the winter, the fluid collects heat from the earth and carries it through the system and into the building. During the summer, the system reverses itself to cool the building by pulling heat from the building, carrying it through the system and placing it in the ground.
“A lot of people don’t understand geothermal,” said Glenn Fisher, Edmond Electric director. “There is nothing magical about it. No abracadabra about it. You are just changing one heating and cooling system for another. It’s not magic by any stretch of the imagination.”
The advantage of a geothermal system is it is cost-effective, reliable, sustainable and environmentally friendly, city leaders said. The public safety center geothermal system will cost $1.25 million.
Brain Sauer, FSB Principal
Brian Sauer, principal and licensed mechanical engineer for Frankfurt Short Bruza, said the public safety center will recoup the cost two or three times faster than most similar systems because the building will run 24 hours a day. The average building has a payoff in the five- to 10-year range.
“This building will pay back faster because the building never really sleeps,” Sauer said. “A typical office building runs eight hours and gets a break. This building will get a payback in a couple of years.”
The system will save energy and reduce the city of Edmond’s electricity costs. Fisher estimates the geothermal system will save between 25 and 35 percent on electrical costs. He said he hasn’t calculated an exact dollar figure. About 72 percent of Edmond Electric’s budget goes to wholesale energy costs.
“It helps us shave our summer peak,” Fisher said. “OMPA (Oklahoma Municipal Power Authority) billing requires you to pay a certain percentage of the peak the year round. Anything that shaves the peak helps the year round.”
The public safety center geothermal system has been a challenging project. Sauer estimated 50 architects and engineers at FSB played a role in the design of the two buildings that will make up the $28.6 million public safety center complex. A second structure, the former Edmond Electric building, is being renovated to give the police department the 15,000 square feet of space it needs for laboratory work and to store evidence.
Voters approved in 2011 a half-cent sales tax to build the public safety center.
Sauer said about 10 engineers worked on the mechanical design of the buildings.
“This is a large effort, a challenging project because of the lack of space and the functions of the building are unique, totally different.”
The spec book for the design of the public safety center is one of the largest composed by Frankfurt Short Bruza.
“I think this is an entertaining project with challenges and sustainable technology,” Sauer said. “We have had the support of the city of Edmond. On some projects, people look for ways to save money by not doing this system. It is good to have their support.”
Challenges and surprises surfaced while installing the well fields. In the former bank parking lot, workers found portions of a porch or basement that had to be removed and hauled off which turned out to be costly, said Deputy Police Chief Steve Thompson.
“It was kind of a surprise,” Thompson said. “We didn’t see that one coming. Look at how old this is here. You are right off Highway 66. Who knows what you are going to find?”
City leaders speculated it could have been a house or a gas station from the 1950s or 1960s. The soil in that area had to be removed and new dirt brought in to protect the new pipes.
“You want to avoid rocks and things like that because you want to protect the pipes,” Fisher said. “You want to have a clean field above these lines.”
The flexibility of the pipe underground in the sand also helps to protect the system from earthquakes, Brannon said. The public safety center is expected to be complete by July or August.
