UT Tyler Campus Expands

Ratliff Complex Phase One to Open in Fall

by Jennifer Hiller

Crews prepare to lay face brick on the patio of the South Building. Photo courtesy Skanska USA.

Temple-based Skanska USA is on its way to completing the first phase of the $27.9 million William R. "Bill" Ratliff Engineering and Science Complex at the University of Texas at Tyler.

The university is close to completing its transition from an upper-division college to a four-year university, and it has grown well ahead of schedule. In 2004, more than 5,300 full-time students enrolled - a number not projected by the university until 2008. Skanska is also the general contractor for a five-story, $16.8 million, 268-student residence hall, the first on campus.

The complex will eventually include more than 160,000 sq. ft. of laboratories, classrooms, faculty offices and support space in two academic buildings, as well as a new central plant facility with two chillers and expansion space for a third. The complex will house its namesake's personal papers and collection in the Ratliff Suite. Ratliff, an alumnus of the university and consulting civil engineer, is the former Texas lieutenant governor and served as a Republican state senator from Mount Pleasant until his retirement in 2004.

Skanska broke ground in mid-2004 on the four-story academic buildings, which will be the largest on campus when completed, said Texas field operations manager Marty Massey.

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The complex's two academic buildings will house elements of the College of Engineering and Computer Science and the College of Arts and Sciences, but will be completed in two phases because full legislative funding for the project has not yet come through.

The contract was a competitive sealed proposal and the architects are the Dallas office of Chicago-based Perkins + Will and B2HK of Houston.

The new central plant and the 64,248-sq.-ft. South Building are scheduled to complete in the first half of 2006, while the 92,621-sq.-ft. North Building will remain a four-story shell until funding becomes available. A 75-foot open-air sky bridge between the two buildings will also be completed, along with the middle portion of the North Building, so that pedestrians can move through, Massey said

Jeni Cobb, project manager with Perkins & Will, said the South Building will be ready for students and faculty by the fall semester.

Architects worked to disguise the size of the buildings in comparison with others on the campus so that the new complex would not overwhelm the site. "We tried to complement the adjacent buildings and keep the scale of this one down," Cobb said. "We wanted to keep with the campus vernacular."

A view of the south elevation of the South Building, which overlooks Lake Harvey. Photo courtesy Skanska USA.

The site slopes 18 to 20 ft. down to Harvey Lake. "It was a big design issue as far as landscaping and saving the trees," Cobb said. "It has a beautiful view to the lake that we worked with."

But the slope and pond also presented one of the biggest construction challenges at the site, hemming in construction equipment and necessitating a large amount of dirt work, Massey said. "When we started we had a 22-foot cut," he said. "We had to contend with the pond. All of the water around that site funnels to the lake. When we did the dirt work we had monsoons."

The topography gave architects a way to hide the central plant - by burying it on the slope. The single-story, 6,827-sq.-ft. plant includes belled piers and a slab-on-grade. Roof framing is structural steel and metal deck. Below-grade walls are concrete, while the two buildings sides above grade are faced with brick veneer and CMU backup. The plant will >> provide chilled water for the complex and backup the campus utilities system.

On the four-story South Building, the foundation system includes straight-shaft drilled piers and a first-floor slab-on grade, while the concrete building frame includes concrete columns and pan slabs at levels two, three and four and the roof level. At level one, three sides of the wall are cast-in-place concrete as are the stairs.

The building veneer is a combination of face brick and cast stone with CMU backup along with a curtain wall and storefront systems.