Community Food and Juice

Ramping up Manhattanville

Since the moment the first steel beam for the Jerome L. Greene Science Center rose at the new Manhattanville campus, all eyes have been focused on the visual progress as the Renzo Piano Building Workshop and Skidmore Owings & Merrill-designed campus began to take shape.

While the Manhattanville Development Group at Facilities and Operations managed the construction, there was much work to do to prepare for the extensive and complicated support functions at the new campus.  Departments across Facilities and Operations, including Public Safety, Operations and Campus Services, were busy behind the scenes in Fiscal Year 2016 (and well before then) putting their plans together just like the new buildings – from the ground up.

"We counted and assessed every piece of equipment”
Several challenges faced the Operations team in preparing to support the new campus.  In addition to typical support and maintenance at a new building, they had to build the foundation of supporting the entire campus – including personnel to operate the Central Energy Plant, hiring across all trades (carpentry, electrical, HVAC, plumbing and more) and even having the facilities onsite to perform their work (which are currently being built on the second floor of Studebaker). 

On top of that, the new buildings have sophisticated and complicated technical systems, the Jerome L. Greene Science Center requires precise support systems for the building’s high-level research, and as everything is brand-new, there is no previous staff to help with knowledge transfer.  Figuring out where to begin could be a challenge in itself.

The first step, according to Phil Kretzmer, assistant vice president for Manhattanville Operations, is to develop a vision for the organization – what it stands for and what it strives to deliver.

For Manhattanville Operations, the vision entailed creating the ultimate customer service-driven organization that uses data points from new technology to aid decision making and supports personal and team development to grow from within as the campus grows – all while being integrated with the needs and priorities of client partners.

With the vision as the foundation, Operations leadership pored through building designs to help determine the base labor force needed.  Predictive and preventative maintenance is expected to be a large part of the team’s work, with the goal of keeping equipment working at its intended level of performance. 

“We literally counted and assessed each piece of infrastructure related equipment, devices and circuits supporting the buildings – and at the Greene Science Center there are in excess of 30,000 – and calculated the time needed to maintain each unique piece spread over all trade disciplines,” explained Kretzmer.

While data related to preventative maintenance played heavily in determining the labor force needed, data points will also play a key role in the building’s every day operations.  As part of the building automation system, there are 14,500 data points – an approximately 400 percent increase in the building automation point density as compared to the Northwest Corner Building, which was built only a few years prior.

“The infrastructure systems in the Greene Science Center make it the most complicated building I have ever experienced,” added Kretzmer, who, prior to starting in his position at Columbia in 2012, served as senior director of engineering infrastructure at NYU-Langone where many buildings had a similar research component.

A primary goal of Frank Martino, vice president of Operations, and Kretzmer is to fill positions needed for the campus’s initial opening.  But they have not lost sight of the long view in needing to continue to grow the workforce as more buildings come online, especially within an industry where the Department of Labor anticipates an attrition of skilled labor in the years ahead.  Their approach could pay dividends to the Morningside and Medical Center campuses as well.

“We created an apprenticeship program to build our farm system of skilled workers.  Support staff works alongside skilled workers for on-the-job training while Columbia provides an opportunity for support staff to participate at off-site, classroom attendance at the Technical Career Institute (TCI), graduation from which leaves them within 20 credits of attaining an Associate’s Degree.  Apprentice personnel are developed and will graduate the program in time for new vacancies in Manhattanville or other opportunities at Morningside or CUMC,” explained Kretzmer.

The apprenticeship program is one of several that Manhattanville Operations has implemented to encourage career growth and keep employees motivated.  It is the opportunity to create innovative programs and establish a goal of excellence from the onset of the campus opening that has Kretzmer most excited.  “At other jobs, keys get handed to you.  Here, we have the opportunity to cut the keys.”

Securing a new campus
Much like their counterparts in Operations, the Department of Public Safety began its planning for supporting the new Manhattanville campus by closely reviewing building plans to become familiar with security architecture, designs for traffic flow in the buildings, entrances and exits, fire safety issues and more.  Their focus is to create a plan to staff the new buildings with adequate safety personnel while building off the existing security programs at Studebaker, Nash and Prentis and integrating them into the overall campus plans.

“Public Safety was brought in early enough in the process – before I started and well before the buildings opened – to meet with both the eventual building occupants and the architectural and construction teams to assess the users’ requirements and work in design changes to accommodate the requirements where needed,” said Konrad Motyka, director of Manhattanville Operations for Public Safety, who started in this position in 2014 as day-to-day demands for planning for the new buildings accelerated.

The new campus has an open street grid and no walls, designed to draw people from inside and outside Columbia to experience the buildings on the ground floor and encourage them to flow through the buildings from Broadway to the West Harlem Piers Park and Hudson River.  That openness and accessibility on the ground floor, juxtaposed with core building functions such as highly specific research for dedicated personnel at the Jerome L. Greene Science Center, require a different approach to security than what exists on the Morningside or Medical Center campuses.

“We expect a lot more people to be walking through the lobbies of the Manhattanville buildings than we would find at a typical academic building on Morningside,” explained Motyka.  “The buildings are designed to be welcoming and engaging to them, and our job is to ensure that experience is met.”

When the first buildings open, there will be a Public Safety command center located on the second floor of the Jerome L. Greene Science Center that will be staffed 24 hours per day, seven days per week.  Eventually, Public Safety will have a headquarters for its Manhattanville Operations located east of Broadway at the former U-Haul building at W131st Street.

Other Public Safety measures are being implemented to support the existing buildings on campus and in anticipation of more activity when the new buildings open.  Guard service at Nash and Prentis has increased to 24/7, a second patrol vehicle has been assigned to the neighborhood and the Public Safety Evening Shuttle has new vehicles, more efficient and convenient routes and stops, and an app offering real-time bus tracking.

By January 2017, Public Safety anticipates its Manhattanville Operations team will have 10 supervisors, 27 officers and one manager, who collectively will fill teams responsible for covering three shifts, 24 hours per day, seven days per week.  Having the team in place with time for training, familiarization with the new buildings and overall onboarding is considered an essential component to ensure seamless coverage when the new buildings open.

Unique solutions for a unique building
Extending Campus Services’ support to the new Manhattanville campus brought a mix of familiarity and creativity.

On the familiar side, the Columbia Transportation team strategized on how to extend the existing shuttle bus routes serving Studebaker, Nash and Prentis to accommodate the expected increase of riders when the first new buildings open, with a particular focus on transportation between campuses as more faculty, students and staff are conducting work between them.

To ready for the opening of the first buildings, Columbia Transportation modified the existing Intercampus Shuttle path through Manhattanville, analyzing the optimal route options to maintain the service level for current stops while adding new locations to accommodate anticipated increased demand.  The revised plan focused all Manhattanville campus stops along Broadway to make the shuttle timetable and experience more consistent and efficient for all riders.  It also eliminated the need for the shuttle to turn down 12th Avenue, avoiding unnecessary traffic and delays.

“Our goal in this case as with all of our services was to ensure we are responsive to and grow with the needs of the campus community. We'll continue to do so as the Manhattanville campus buildings come online,” said Mike Pagan executive director of Administrative Services for Campus Services.

On the more creative side, the Jerome L. Greene Science Center will be unlike any other existing building to which Columbia Mail delivers.  The Mail team met with the future building occupants to understand anticipated mail needs, including estimated volume and building protocols, and the team had to assess various options in developing a new service model to accommodate the building’s uniqueness and the client’s specific requirements.

The team also analyzed the existing mail distribution route and how best to include the Jerome L. Greene Science Center into its distribution pattern between existing campus locations.

In the end, Columbia Mail will be providing a specialized service model at the Jerome L. Greene Science Center, including bulk mail drops on individual floors.

According to Pagan, “we understand the unique nature of the work being conducted in the building and knew that a custom solution was needed to meet the building tenant’s needs.”

Looking ahead
In the years ahead, Operations, Public Safety and Campus Services will be balancing the dual roles of serving and supporting the new campus while continuing to work with Manhattanville Development Group, architects, construction managers and eventual building occupants to grow their teams and functions as more new buildings are completed.

“Our track record of collaboration in the Greene Science Center and Lenfest Center for the Arts set the foundation going forward that will benefit planning with the Business School and Phase 2 buildings,” said Motyka of Public Safety.