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Construction is underway on a major renovation to modernize science laboratories at St. Louis Community College’s Forest Park, Meramec and Florissant Valley campuses, with Kwame Building Group, Inc. (KWAME) serving as the construction manager. The architect is Michael Roth & Associates and the general contractor is Kozeny-Wagner.

Over the next two summers, 15,000 square feet of science laboratories at the three campuses will be updated with new lighting, casework, flooring, paint, and laboratory equipment.

KWAME is managing the project in two phases on a tight summer timeline to meet academic schedules. Construction of the first phase, which includes 13 labs, will be completed in mid-August, in time for the 2016 – 2017 school year. The remaining six laboratories will be renovated in Summer 2017.

Kwame Building Group, Inc. (KWAME) is one of the nation’s top 15 pure construction management firms, dedicating 100 percent of its resources to project management services.

S. M. Wilson & Co. has been selected by the Ladue School District to perform $82.2 million worth of additions and renovations to Ladue Horton Watkins High School beginning this summer.  Construction will focus on updating the academic core of the building where classrooms have not been significantly renovated since being built in the 1950s and 1960s. Funding for the project comes from an $85.1 million bond referendum passed by the District’s voters in April.

Preparations for construction have already begun with initial efforts focused on creating temporary classrooms within the existing building, installing outdoor classrooms that will primarily be dedicated to science programming, establishing construction staging areas, reconfiguring parking and traffic flow, and beginning abatement and the demolition process of the portion of the backside of the building that will be rebuilt.  The project is anticipated to be substantially completed by the beginning of the 2018-19 school year.

When completed, the high school will feature classrooms designed to accommodate today’s educational best practices which require spaces conducive to collaboration across disciplines, small group work, the integrated use of science, technology, engineering, art and math (STEAM), and the opportunity for students to apply their knowledge in real-world applications and group-based projects.  Other features will include:

• A three-story Commons Area at the apex of corridors leading to various academic areas;
• Seminar and breakout areas mixed in with classrooms, enabling small group work;
• A lecture area large enough to enable speakers to address multiple classes simultaneously; and
• Spaces to exhibit student work throughout the building.

S. M. Wilson provided pre-referendum informational services to the Ladue School District, and will provide pre-construction and construction management services for the project.  Hastings+Chivetta and Bond Architects are the architectural firms selected for the project and also began work on the project well before the initiative was approved by voters in April.

In 2011, S. M. Wilson completed construction of a $14 million Early Childhood Center for the Ladue School District.  The company has also completed a variety of renovations and additions at many of the District’s elementary, middle school, and high school facilities.

S. M. Wilson is a full-service construction management, design/build and general contracting firm with headquarters in St. Louis.

Tarlton will complete the core and shell of the new 4260 Forest Park building at Cortex this summer, but developer Wexford Science & Technology isn’t going to rest.

Jerry Crylen, senior director at Wexford Science & Technology, told AGC members last week that even as tenant finish work gets underway on the three-story, $24 million building, Wexford Science & Technology is moving ahead with a $165 million project on Duncan Avenue across from the iconic 4240 building.

The new project is a mixed-use development with three building types and a parking garage: a hotel, a 250-unit apartment building, and 40,000-square-feet of retail.

A representative of Wexford Science & Technology stated in an email that the company has not set a date for breaking ground.

That project is part of the $350 million in construction that Wexford Science & Technology as planned for the Cortex district in the next five years. Also in that plan is another office-lab building on Duncan Avenue, this one a five-story, $45 million building.

Also on the horizon is the groundbreaking for the new Cortex MetroLink Station, slated for the first quarter of 2018.

Wexford Science & Technology is looking ahead at the Danforth Plant Science Center’s BRDG Park in Creve Coeur, too. The company is working with the Danforth Center to develop a master plan to redevelop a 200-acre area north of the existing BRDG Park.  

Editor’s Note: A previous version of this article stated that ground would be broken this year.

Community Event set for May 19 1:31 pm from U‑Haul

U‑Haul Company of St. Louis is delighted to reintroduce a famed piece of modern art to the  world by uncovering renowned sculptor Isamu Noguchi’s illuminated ceiling at 1641 S. Kingshighway Blvd.

The Noguchi masterpiece had been hidden from public view for decades by a drop ceiling at U‑Haul Moving & Storage at Kingshighway, historic site of the former American Stove Company‑Magic Chef building.

St. Louis architect Harris Armstrong designed the building in the mid‑1940s and commissioned Noguchi (1904‑1988), an American artist admired for his sculptures, landscape architecture and furniture designs, to create the truly unique ceiling for Magic Chef’s open first‑floor lobby.

Prior to U‑Haul acquiring the iconic building in 1977, it had been used by the Teamsters Union as a healthcare facility and then sat vacant for roughly 10 years. U‑Haul tailored the six‑story facility to meet its customers’ needs through the years, including the use of a drop ceiling in the former lobby. About two years ago, U‑Haul began internal discussions regarding the upgrade and enlargement of its showroom.

“In conjunction with improving the showroom, my intention was to reveal the ceiling,” UHaul Company of St. Louis president Steve Langford said. “There was a Noguchi exhibit at the St. Louis Art Museum running around the time we began working on this project, so there were lots of photos to use as a frame of reference.”

Langford will host a media open house from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Thursday at the Kingshighway store. Interviews and photo/video opportunities will be available.

All of St. Louis is invited to attend a community open house from 7 to 8:30 p.m. on May 19.

The project began in November and was completed in late March. U‑Haul facility maintenance technicians did the ceiling work aside from painting, which was  contracted out. The showroom expanded from 1,500 to 2,250 square feet,  allowing more than 80 percent of Noguchi’s design to be visible in public areas once the drop ceiling was removed.

Ceiling work included: removing hanging florescent lights; removing grids and anchors attached to the sculpture; rerouting cables and HVAC duct work between the drop ceiling and sculpture; restoring the original recessed can lighting with new LED bulbs; and extensive patching, sanding and painting to match the original look and colors as closely as possible.

“Isamu Noguchi’s sculpted ceiling designed for the 1946 Magic Chef building in St. Louis is the last surviving of the seminal American artist’s monumental ‘lunar landscapes,'” said Genevieve Cortinovis, assistant curator of decorative arts and design at the Saint Louis Art Museum.

“Visually striking and fundamentally practical, the plaster ceiling’s undulating curves, characteristic of Noguchi’s biomorphic sculpture of the 1940s, provided discreet signage, lighting, and a welcome burst of color for visitors of the  international Style building by architect Harris Armstrong. Noguchi held that by lending punctuation and dimension to space, these large‑scale sculptures, an extension of the architecture itself, could make people ‘feel better, feel happier to be there.'”

A model of Noguchi’s ceiling is in the museum’s collection and it recently was on display in the exhibition St. Louis Modern.

Cortinovis added that along with Carl Milles’ fountain for Aloe Plaza and Harry Bertoia’s sculpture screen for Lambert International Airport, the Noguchi ceiling is arguably the most important site‑specific sculpture executed in St. Louis in the decades leading up to the completion of the Gateway Arch.

“We’re so pleased to be able to share this artwork with the community again,” Langford said.

The Noguchi ceiling repair and reveal is a credit to AMERCO Chairman and President Edward J. “Joe” Shoen, a proponent of preserving historical rchitecture in cities where UHaul executes its corporate adaptive reuse initiatives by repurposing existing buildings as U‑Haul stores. This sustainable practice enables U‑Haul to reduce unwanted blight in neighborhoods while creating jobs and offering additional moving and storage options for customers.

Learn more about how U‑Haul is getting involved in St. Louis and other communities by visiting myuhaulstory.com.

By John Young and Vince Keady of Stinson Leonard Street

On April 12, 2016, the Missouri Court of Appeals for the Eastern District handed down an opinion Crafton Contracting Company, et al. v. Swenson Construction, Inc., that is of interest to owner/landlords, their lenders, tenants and their contractors and subcontractors, involved in tenant finish improvements on space in multi-tenant commercial properties.

Under this opinion, unpaid mechanics lien subcontractor claimants who performed tenant finish improvements in a shoe store in a regional shopping mall were able to establish and enforce mechanics liens against the entire mall property. The appellate court, reversing the trial court, concluded that lease terms that required tenant finish and the landlord’s approval of same, along with certain other terms, established the tenant as an agent of the owner/landlord for purposes of the Mechanics Lien Statute, §429.010, R.S.Mo. The court rejected the trial court’s finding that the improvements were not “substantial and permanent” when compared to the entirety of the mall property and further concluded that it was immaterial whether the owner/landlord actually benefitted on a long-term basis by the transaction work performed by the mechanics lien claimants.

This decision may impact the relationships and risks existing between and among owner/landlords, lenders, tenants and contractors and subcontractors, relating to any unpaid tenant finish work and mechanics liens encumbering a multi-tenant property.

For more information regarding the decision or to ask questions, please contact the attorneys listed below or the Stinson Leonard Street attorney with whom you regularly work.

John G. Young, Jr.

314.719.3049

Vince Keady

314.719.3050