Midwestern Consulting

Will there be a FY 2011 higher education capital outlay bill?

Michigan House and Senate bills referred to committee in February to finance college and university building and renovation projects are stuck in their respective Appropriations Committees.

Both Senate Bill 1150 and House Bill 5858 seem to be going no where fast.  Each bill contains a “zero budget” for higher education spending.  The legislature needs to get a bill written and on the Governor’s desk by the end of September if there is to be any higher education spending from the state at community colleges and public universities in FY 2011.

Each year, community colleges and universities submit building construction “wish lists” to the state budget office.  If approved, the state pays 75% of the project costs for university projects and 50% of the costs of community college projects. 

The largest request from a university this year is from Wayne State University – $200,000,000 for a new multi-disciplinary Biomedical Research Building.  The largest community college request is from Oakland Community College – $32,065,000 for the interior renovations and additions on Building A in the Auburn Hills campus.

Design engineers, architects and construction trades benefit from the state’s spending on these big projects.  Passage of these bills would provide a huge boost to these employment sectors.

Design and construction rating systems like LEED include little recognition of the benefits of sustainable landscape and site design. The Sustainable Sites Initiative (SITES) intends to change that with a 4-star rating system that recognizes “ecosystem services”. 

LEED scores soon to incorporate landscape design.

These ecosystem services include global and local climate regulation, air and water cleansing, water supply and regulation, erosion and sediment control, hazard mitigation, pollination, habitat functions, waste decomposition and treatment, human health and well-being benefits, food and renewable non-food products, and cultural benefits.

SITES is a distillation of practices and principles for integrating “ecosystem services” into site development, as described in The Sustainable Sites Initiative: Guidelines and Performance Benchmarks 2009, released on November 5, 2009. It establishes and encourages sustainable practices in landscape design, construction, operations, and maintenance. 

Sustainable landscapes move beyond the typical green building do-no-harm/carbon neutral approach by sequestering carbon, cleaning the air and water, increasing energy efficiency, restoring habitats, and giving back through significant economic, social, and environmental benefits never fully measured until now. The U.S. Green Building Council anticipates incorporating the SITES guidelines and performance benchmarks into future iterations of its LEED® Green Building Rating System™.

SITES provides the first voluntary guidelines and rating system for sustainable landscapes, with or without buildings, and creates an essential missing link in green design.

Earl Ophoff, LSA, is a landscape architect and a senior project manager with Midwestern Consulting, LLC, Ann Arbor, Michigan.  Call Earl at 734.995.0200.

Midwestern Consulting uses hi-tech laser scanning instruments to investigate auto accidents

It is not always sunny in Michigan! 

The spring and summer rains nurture new plant growth and our state blossoms into the pleasant peninsula described in the state motto.  These seasons also generate roadway crashes that seem to be related to stormwater ponding in highway ruts. 

Vehicle crashes occurring during rainstorms are a growing trend, and Midwestern Consulting is frequently contacted by personal injury and defense attorneys seeking our counsel on whether hydroplaning conditions likely contributed to a loss of vehicular control.   Our engineers are recognized experts in determining roadway conditions that could result in loss of control during rainstorms and the specific location where these conditions were present in relation to initial vehicle rotation and point of impact. 

Important considerations include a review of Doppler Radar for the specific storm and time of the crash, the tire tread depth and pressure, and the shape of the roadway along the vehicle’s travel path. 

Using high-definition 3D laser scanning equipment, Midwestern Consulting creates accurate surface models of each highway rut and calculates the probable depth of water in each rut along a section of roadway.  When this information is combined with the tire and rainfall data we are able to identify the speed and location at which each vehicle tire could be susceptible to loss of surface contact.  This information is used by a certified Accident Reconstructionist to verify calculations regarding the location and speed at which hydroplaning began – and to more accurately determine the velocity at the point of impact. 

Hydroplaning crashes frequently result in serious injury or death.  The scientific engineering approach that Midwestern Consulting takes in determining whether hydroplaning conditions were present is valuable in assisting attorneys as they pursue their cases to benefit their clients.  Our experts frequently are called upon to explain the hydroplaning analysis in depositions and court testimony. 

Jim Valenta, PE, is a senior transportation engineer at Midwestern Consulting, LLC.  He provides expert witness services related to roadway design and traffic accidents. Contact Jim at 734.995.0200.

The new Pittsfield Township Costco store would be behind Tyner Furniture

It was only about four years ago that Costco tried to develop on the Washtenaw County Road Commission site in Scio Township.  Had that site plan been granted, Costco would have built a store a little bigger than the Lowe’s on the south side of I-94 at Zeeb Road.  The Washtenaw County Road Commission would have had a long-term lease revenue stream of approximately $750,000 per year – enough to support an estimated $13-$15 million in road improvement and maintenance bonds.  And Scio Township would have realized roughly $9500 in annual property tax revenue. 

Now Costco is planning a new store in Pittsfield Township near the Ann Arbor Airport.  While site plan approval is far from fait accompli, removing eight industrial buildings to make room for the store will result in a loss of about 140,000 square feet.  That should benefit demand for surrounding properties as distribution and service oriented tenants search for space along Ellsworth and State Street.  The proposed development probably won’t help the nearby Ann Arbor Research Park as much.

The Miller family, owners of Tyner Furniture which abuts the planned Costco site, will certainly see the value of their real estate investment soar over time.  There is room on the site to expand in-line retail space while leaving the furniture store intact.  The new Costco project could also spur an interest in redevelopment of the Motel 6 and Cherry Blossom sites near the Ellsworth and State Street intersection.

David Kwan is a development consultant working for Midwestern Consulting.  David can be reached at 734.646.7109.

3D building data collected for a previous project generated accurate elevation drawings for a new project and saved the client time and money.  Scanning data collected during an initial project can be re-visited to create continued value for the client.

In the spring of 2008, Midwestern Consulting was hired by the historic preservation team of JJR, LLC/HopkinsBurns Design Studio to scan the historic buildings of Fishtown, an active commercial fishing port in Leland, Michigan on the shore of Lake Michigan.  Fishtown is also a popular summer destination for vacationers to the area. 

The 2008 project was to scan the Fishtown buildings and generate a topographic survey of the site and wire-frame drawings of the buildings for the architectural team.  The image below shows the wire-frame drawings on top of the point cloud.  The Fishtown Preservation Society and the architects used the drawings to establish building locations and dimensions.

In February 2010, the Fishtown Preservation Society was awarded funding through the National Trust for Historic Preservation from the Jeffris Heartland Fund to finance a Historic Structure Report for the Fishtown buildings and related structures along the Leland River.  As part of the project, Midwestern Consulting was again hired to generate new drawings of each building including additional dimensions, detailed elevations, geometric locations, and other fine details.  The drawing below shows the north elevation of the Manitou Outfitters building in significant detail.

These tasks were easily accomplished since we already had the data.
Without the initial scan data, we would have had to travel to the site again and do more measurements.  That means more time and money spent on the project.  With the data in hand, Midwestern was able to give the historic preservation team additional accurate details of Fishtown at a fraction of the cost needed to get the new measurements.