Auburn University

HPM’s relationship with Auburn University spans more than 15 years, ranging from capital improvements and infrastructure updates to residence halls and fully equipped facilities for education and research.

Naturally, academic facilities are a main focus for the university. The Shelby Center for Engineering Technology was designed to be an iconic fixture for the university and a center for leading-edge engineering education. The growing Health Sciences Sector offers educational opportunities for the ever-increasing number of students looking to Auburn in pursuit of a career in healthcare.

For comfortable student living, the eight-building Village residence hall community is home to more than 1,500 students. And the nearby Village Dining Hall has five separate serving areas, a coffee bar, a convenience store and seating for a total of 600 diners — plus all the commercial-grade kitchen equipment necessary to serve a crowd. All aspects of college life — the academic and the personal — are addressed and continuously improved to offer a positive student experience.

THE MOST IMPORTANT STAKEHOLDERS

HPM is experienced at managing construction projects with minimal impact on the owner — few companies can afford to shut down operations to accommodate construction or renovation. Working on a university campus teeming with more than 27,000 students, however, presents its own new level of difficulty. An active campus means careful scheduling of construction, to the month (making use of holidays and summer break), the week (knowing when special events will make campus particularly active) and even the hour (knowing when students are likely to be in the academic areas or the residence halls). It means wayfinding signage and barricades to keep students with their head in their lecture notes from wandering into a construction zone. And it means after-hours site security to keep out curious wanderers. From the earliest stages of the planning process, HPM made student safety — and parental peace of mind — a priority and a metric for project success.