BALANCING Act

General Contractors juggles multiple requests for Minitube

Minitube International Center for Biotechnology

By Brendan O'Brien

Photos courtesy of General Contractors Inc.

General Contractors Inc. took the concept of a multiuse facility to a unique level when it built the Minitube Inter-national Center for Biotechnology in Mount Horeb.

In addition to a 19,000-square-foot research and development center, the construction company built a caretaker's house, a guest house and a horse barn for the research and learning facility.

"The most impressive thing to me is that it is a multiuse facility with barns, with a research center," said David Craker, president of General Contrac-tors. "There were so many things that had to come together to make the project work and work successfully."

Construction on the site also included a county road, a 750,000-gallon fire protection pond and a horse-bedding storage structure.

"The owner had contracted with several different people on many different things," Craker said. "They self-performed a lot of their own work, and we worked with them on a daily basis, coordinating and scheduling, to ensure the project would be complete and on time as scheduled."

The focal point of the project was a three-and-a-half-story glass silo used for multipurpose space.

"We worked with the architect in getting additional dimensions from the drawings so we could make sure the [silo's] foundation was correctly laid out," Craker said.

	Project Name: Minitube International Center for Biotechnology Location: Mount Horeb Submitting Company: General Contractors Inc., Verona General Contractor: General Contractors Inc. Architect: Architectural Computer Services, Verona Engineer: Gunnar Malm & Associates Inc., Madison Owner: Minitube of America, Verona Project Cost: $5 million Start Date: December 2002 Completion Date: June 2004

"We double-checked everything to make sure it was constructed properly."

The state-of-the-art research lab required a wide range of features, from nitrogen and oxygen supplies to security systems and bullpen fencing. Since the facility has many uses and many different occupants, it needed several contractors for construction.

"It is a unique facility in that in the same building you have living space for cattle and pigs, which transitions into a surgery area and research labs," Craker said. "You need to shut off one area from the others. We were working with a lot of different subcontractors to get that done."

During excavation, General Contractors found soft clay under a portion of the main building foundation, and that delayed construction until the team could get fill material for the site. The delay bought the owner time to request a basement beneath a third of the building.

"The fact that we were able to do it is somewhat of a miracle," Craker said. "There were just so many changes and so many different people involved."

And the weather didn't make things any easier.

"We had extreme weather conditions, from building in the heart of winter to a virtual flood in spring," Craker said. "Our site withstood the weather remarkably well. It had minor damage, but nothing where the erosion-control measures were wiped out like on neighboring construction projects."