Challenge

Great Rivers Greenway wanted to connect two sections of its existing St. Louis County bike trail on the University of Missouri - St. Louis campus (UMSL). The cross-campus trail is near UMSL's student center, in an area highly trafficked by students and staff. The project included construction of new sidewalks and demolition of existing sidewalks, requiring careful planning and coordination with the University to minimize impacts. The project also included construction of an underpass at a highly trafficked section of an on-campus roadway. The timeline for the underpass was restricted to an aggressive one-month schedule, in order to minimize the overall inconvenience to the campus.

Success

Immediately following selection of the general contractor, Northstar focused on the contractor's detailed construction schedule to not only understand and validate their project approach, activity starts and durations, but also establish material procurement and submittal approval dates. Prior to construction, Northstar held a project team meeting that outlined the protocol for all project communications. This included RFI's, submittals, change requests, approvals, etc. and the necessity of fast responses by all team members to eliminate schedule delays. Northstar scheduled weekly construction update meetings that included a two-week look-ahead schedule. Information from this schedule was communicated to the University's administration, security police, staff, and students, for a complete understanding of upcoming construction activities and their impact on the campus. These communications, along with carefully planned phasing provisions, minimized foot traffic inconveniences as existing sidewalks were removed and new ones installed.