Business Connections

By Rob Patterson

Texas State University Gets Its Share of Wall Street

The new McCoy School of Business at Texas State University in San Marcos brings a taste of the business world to academia.

The five-story, 127,000-sq.-ft., reinforced-concrete structure had to be squeezed into a tight site and blend into the campus scheme. "The objective was to not make it a five-story box," said Roland De La Garza, project architect for Garza/Bomberger & Associates in San Antonio. "It was a great opportunity to bring in a commercial look to the campus for the business building."

The $18.8 million structure "follows the campus standard for appearance and product," said Paul Cornell, assistant director for planning, design and construction at Texas State. Clad in tan brick with red-iron brick bands, the design follows the university's material guidelines.

Still, window walls at various levels on all four sides "make the building a little lighter and give it some of the appearance of an office building you'd find in a downtown city area," De La Garza said. "And in order for it to not crowd the nearby plazas, dormitories and parking garages from its constricted locale, it has step-backs to give it scale. The biggest challenge was to get it to fit in there and save the trees around it."

Ground was broken in September 2003 on the building, which sits upon piers drilled into limestone. The project topped out in August 2004 and is set for completion in November.

About 8,000 cu. yds. of concrete were poured for the structure. Older dormitories were demolished to accommodate the new building.

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Project manager Paul Harris of general contractor W.G. Yates & Sons Construction Cos., a family-owned contractor out of Philadelphia, Miss., that recently opened an office in San Antonio, agreed that the most daunting aspect of the project was the limited space.

"That is typical of a university that is trying to use existing space to build a new building," he added. "There's not much laydown area at all. There's fairly major traffic along the west elevation, which made deliveries a challenge. Scheduling and sequencing is definitely required on this one."

The care taken with the building's exterior extends inside, especially at the main entrance. "Our goal was to make a major lobby and atrium space," Harris said. "Our idea was that as you walk into this space, it wakes you up. It was originally conceived as a four-story atrium, but then we broke it up."

The two-story interior mall at the entryway features lightly sanded architectural concrete columns, beams, stairways and bridges. The medium to high finishes inside include complementary terra cotta and white-maple wall accents and etched-glass rails with wood caps that line the stairs. Above a terrazzo floor is a concrete waffle-slab ceiling with painted sheetrock clouds suspended below.

"It's a dynamic interior space," De La Garza said of the first two levels, which house teaching auditoriums and classrooms.

On the opposite side and entrance of the building, a columned portico and curtain walls introduce drama and light to the structure. The third floor contains classrooms and a finished-out space in which the university plans to install a simulated trading room with big board feeds from Wall Street. A sublevel houses the electrical and mechanical facilities.

Another atrium opens at the center of the top two stories, which are occupied by offices for the faculty and dean. Centered atop the primarily flat rooftop - with a slight quarter-in.-per-ft. slope for drainage - a copper-clad barrel vault with clerestory windows augments the light from curtain walls on the east and west sides of both floors.

The McCoy building will serve as a landmark and as a magnet for the business school to attract students and professionals. It will also be a showcase structure in Texas for W.G. Yates.