Campus buildings people use for decades, built without interrupting the semester.

We build interior renovations, research and clinical buildouts, and ground-up academic buildings for North Carolina universities. This page shows three recent projects that match the scope, schedule pressure, and occupied-building conditions your capital team is likely planning for.

Scope

Complete interior renovation of a three-story 1974 library. The opaque precast south facade was replaced with a high-performance glass curtain wall. Interior work included a new learning commons, a silent reading hall, group study rooms, a climate-controlled special collections vault, high-density compact storage, new mechanical systems, and updated electrical and data infrastructure.

At a glance

Seating: 1,150 to 1,400 seats

Collection moved: 410,000 volumes, three phases

Daylight: Glazed south elevation, 3 stories

First-semester gate count: +38%

Owner's challenge

The library could not close. It is the busiest study space on campus, and finals week was non-negotiable. The 1974 building also contained asbestos-containing floor materials, a failing mechanical system, and a collection that needed protection from dust and humidity swings during demolition.

Our approach

• Planned the work in three phases around the academic calendar, so each phase finished before the next finals period. Library staff and our project manager agreed on the move schedule for each phase before it began.

• Relocated 410,000 volumes in three moves, with a barcode tracking process shared with library staff, so every item was accounted for at each handoff.

• Abated asbestos-containing materials in sealed negative-pressure zones with air monitoring reports shared weekly with the university's environmental health office.

• Installed the glass curtain wall from a lifted platform on the quad side, so the interior stayed in use while the old facade came off in sections, each closed in within the same week.

• Protected the collection with temporary partitions, particulate monitoring, and humidity logging in occupied stack areas through the whole project.

• Held a standing Monday meeting with library leadership to approve every noisy-work window two weeks ahead.

Results

• Open every day of every finals week. No service days lost to construction.

• Reopened two weeks ahead of the planned date.

• Final cost $41.8M against a $42.6M GMP, with $800K returned to the owner.

• No collection items lost across the three moves. Humidity stayed within the conservator's range during the whole project.

Safety & local

96,000 labor hours with zero recordable incidents. 15.1% HUB participation, above the 10% state goal. 74% of subcontract value went to North Carolina firms.

Team

• Dana Whitfield, Project Executive

• Marcus Oyelaran, Project Manager

• Tom Reyes, Superintendent

Scope

New three-level performing arts center with a 900-seat concert hall, a 200-seat recital hall, a sculptural wood-clad lobby, rehearsal rooms, 24 practice rooms, a scene shop, and back-of-house areas. Includes a 3,200-pipe organ installed in the concert hall.

At a glance

• Concert hall: 900 seats, terraced

• Recital hall: 200 seats

• Interior wood panels: 4,200 uniquely cut

• Background noise: NC-15 achieved in concert hall

Owner's challenge

The hall had to meet strict acoustic criteria for a symphonic venue, on a site in a coastal flood zone with a high water table. The interior needed 4,200 custom-cut wood panels, each different, and a pipe organ that cannot be installed until temperature and humidity are stable.

Our approach

• Built a full-scale acoustic wall and ceiling mock-up with the acoustician during preconstruction, tested before the final panel design was released.

• Constructed the concert hall as a box within a box, isolated from the lobby and mechanical spaces, with vibration isolation joints placed and inspected before enclosure.

• Placed the foundation on driven piles with a dewatering plan sized for the site's water table, and set the finished floor above the flood elevation.

• Prefabricated and tracked all 4,200 wood panels by number, with inspection of each lot at the shop before shipping.

• Dried the building in and held it at controlled temperature and humidity for six weeks before wood panels and the organ were delivered.

• Followed a written crane protocol with wind-speed hold points for the hurricane season, agreed with the university's risk office.

Results

• Measured reverberation time in the concert hall came within 0.1 seconds of the acoustician's target at acceptance testing.

• Background noise measured at NC-15, the design criterion.

• Handed over five weeks before the first season, and opened to a sold-out concert.

• Final cost $96.5M against a $97.8M GMP, with $1.3M returned to the owner.

Safety & local

318,000 labor hours with two recordable incidents (TRIR 1.26). 13.4% HUB participation. 69% of subcontract value went to firms in eastern North Carolina.

Team

• Dana Whitfield, Project Executive

• Priya Nandakumar, Project Manager

• Jerome Hatch, Superintendent

Scope

New four-level science building (three stories above a walk-out lower level) with 22 teaching and research laboratories, an instrument core, a computational research lab, a rooftop teaching greenhouse, and faculty and collaboration space. Lab systems include 64 fume hoods, lab gases, RO/DI water, vacuum, and 100% outside-air ventilation with energy recovery. Exposed painted steel and ductwork keep the labs easy to reconfigure.

At a glance

• Laboratories: 22 teaching and research labs

• Fume hoods: 64, all passed containment testing

• Certification: LEED Gold

• Site grade change: 52 feet across the footprint

Owner's challenge

A lab building puts roughly half its cost into mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems, and the equipment that drives it carries the longest lead times on the project. The site also dropped 52 feet across the footprint, and faculty for several of the labs had not yet been hired when design closed, so the building had to stay flexible without losing control of the budget.

Our approach

• Priced the MEP systems at every design milestone, and flagged two lab ventilation options that would have added about $2.6M before the design was locked.

• Released lab exhaust fans, air handlers, and switchgear as an early procurement package nine months before the building was enclosed, which protected the schedule from long lead times.

• Built a full-scale mock-up of one teaching lab and one research lab bay with faculty. They tested bench heights, hood placement, and utility drops, and the layout changed in five places before it was repeated 22 times.

• Planned the exposed painted steel and ductwork as finish work, with hanger and conduit routing coordinated in the model so the ceilings looked right as well as worked right.

• Terraced the hillside with balanced cut and fill to keep soil on site, and managed stormwater with bioswales and native plantings along the entry path.

• Started commissioning six months before turnover, testing airflow, pressurization, and containment on every hood and every lab.

• Turned over the building floor by floor, so research groups could begin moving equipment while the upper levels were still being finished.

Results

• All 64 fume hoods passed containment testing on the first attempt.

• The first research group moved in eight weeks before the semester, and the full building turned over four weeks ahead of the contract date.

• Modeled energy use is 34% below the baseline for a comparable lab building, tracked against metered data through the first year.

• Final cost $118.4M against a $120.1M GMP, with $1.7M returned to the owner. 92% of lab space was assigned to faculty before opening.

Safety & local

402,000 labor hours with two recordable incidents (TRIR 0.99). 14.6% HUB participation, above the 10% state goal. 66% of subcontract value went to firms in western North Carolina.

Team

• Dana Whitfield, Project Executive

• Samir Haddad, Project Manager

• Ellen Brandt, Superintendent

  
  

Early, honest budget validation -

We review scope and budget during programming and design, and tell you early when the two do not match, with options for closing the gap.

Phasing around the calendar

We plan around move-in dates, exam periods, and research cycles, and we map out each shutdown with the people it affects.

One accountable team

The project executive, manager, and superintendent you meet during the pursuit are the ones who build your project.

Closeout your facilities team can use

Organized O&M documentation, trained operators, and a defined warranty process, delivered before your team takes the keys.

License:

North Carolina General Contractor, Unlimited

Delivery methods:

CM at-risk, design-build, design-bid-build with preconstruction services

Bonding capacity:

$150M single project, $400M aggregate

Safety:

EMR 0.71 · three-year TRIR 1.1 · OSHA 30 for all supervisors

HUB & local:

13.9% average HUB participation on state-funded work · outreach program with NC small and minority-owned firms

Occupied campus:

Infection control (ICRA), vibration monitoring, and noise-sensitive scheduling protocols on every renovation

© 2026 Example Raleigh GC Co, LLC. All rights reserved.

Page prepared by Alonzo A. Brown