Windover Construction is proud to announce it has won a Mark H. Hasso Project Excellence Award from the New England chapter of the Construction Management Association of America (CMAA-NE) for the Cummings School of Nursing and Health Sciences project at Endicott College. The CMAA is dedicated to the practice of professional construction management and each year recognizes the project teams that take on the toughest challenges and demonstrate the highest levels of innovation and collaboration in construction management.
Windover received the Chapter Choice award from CMAA-NE for its innovative use of technology, collaboration across the project team to overcome challenges, and meticulous planning and coordination during the construction of the state-of-the-art facility at Endicott College.
Designed for experiential learning, the four-story, 70,000-square-foot Cummings School brings together classrooms, labs, offices, multipurpose meeting rooms, lounge spaces, and support rooms. For nursing students, the new building features advanced laboratories, high-fidelity simulators, and interactive lab spaces. For the sports sciences, there’s a human performance lab, therapeutic lab, and modalities lab with a hydrotherapy room. Importantly, by bringing the schools together under one roof, the building design facilitates opportunities for collaborative learning experiences across the health sciences. The Cummings School bolsters Endicott’s hands-on approach to learning while developing a skilled, work-ready group of nursing and health science professionals – a talent pipeline critical to battling the nursing shortage.
Already an intricately designed building with state-of-the-art equipment and systems, the project’s scope increased during construction to add significant new elements to the design of the building. The Windover team had to quickly pivot and adapt the construction plan to avoid extending the schedule. What was already a carefully coordinated sequence of work had to be taken to the next level to accommodate the additional work and trades. The four-week lookahead schedules and logistics plans became critical tools for organizing the trades, both in terms of sequence of work and physical work in the building. The level of detail put into every aspect of construction planning allowed for work to progress efficiently and for the project to finish three weeks ahead of schedule, even with the added scope.
Additionally, the Windover team took a collaborative approach to working through challenges in the field. When details were discovered that were not viable, might cause issues, or could be optimized, the team would not just identify these issues, but dig in and provide informed solutions. Windover’s field team would often develop a solution in the field, model the proposed detail using input from the trade partners, and share this potential solution with the architect for approval. This method streamlined communication and kept progress moving forward on site.
The Cummings School, designed by Derck & Edson Architects, marks the completion of Endicott’s new and contiguous 260,000-square-foot academic complex, which Windover constructed in five phases over ten years. The new academic hub consists of the Samuel C. Wax Academic Center, Hempstead Commons, and Gerrish School of Business and Ginger Judge Life Science Center, along with a new 530-space parking garage. Windover has been involved in all aspects of the academic complex endeavor, and, having worked on the campus for over 15 years, drew from its deep understanding of the College’s needs and goals to provide existing building assessments, phasing and sequencing options, and design-build and construction management services.
Windover was proud to bring this facility to the Endicott community at a time when careers in nursing and health sciences are more critical than ever, and thrilled that the entire project team’s dedication, hard work, and collaboration were recognized with this award from CMAA-NE.