Westinghouse Building 4

Cranberry Township, Pennsylvania

Westinghouse Electric Company has recently added 121,905 square feet of office space to their brand new headquarters facility in the form of a separate yet nearby building called Westinghouse Building 4. This new building is owned by The Ferchill Group and was constructed under the supervision of Turner Construction who is served as the General Contractor. The project was on an extremely agressive15 month schedule and was occupied by Westinghouse in early November of 2010.

In recent years Westinghouse has expanded tremendously and required more office space for their employees. In the summer of 2009 Westinghouse employees began moving into their new home in the Westinghouse headquarters’ buildings 1, 2, and 3. During the move Westinghouse was still expanding faster than the pace of construction so additional office space was leased inside the Cranberry Woods complex. Out of necessity, due to this expansion, Westinghouse began immediate construction on Building 4 even before Building 2 and 3 were 100% complete.

The most important factor for Westinghouse in regards to Building 4 was schedule and that it be completed on time so they could begin moving out of their leased space and into the new building. In addition, having their employees in different buildings creates problems when scheduling meetings and other company events.

As such, The Ferchill Group determined that a traditional design-bid-build delivery method would be most effective way to deliver this project on time and on budget. Turner Construction was able to receive its Certificate of Occupancy three months before the scheduled date. Achieving this feat was a product of hard work by the local subcontractors and excellent building planning and scheduling on The Ferchill Group’s part.

All parties involved in the project held safety to the highest standards. An Owner Controlled Insurance Program or OCIP was used for this project, which meant a city safety employee could be brought in as a third party safety manager on the site. Westinghouse is expanding very quickly right now largely due to their new safety systems that they are incorporating into their new power plant designs and the last thing they would want is negative publicity about safety on the headquarters buildings.

Cost and quality were also taken into consideration in the planning of this building. The cost was to be kept down while the quality was to be maximized and mimic that of the main buildings. The interior finishes and the general exterior facades of the building were also meant to be similar to those of the main 3 buildings. The keys to completion of the project in the owner’s eyes are that it is finished and occupied on time. Furnishing the interior of the building on time and correctly running all low voltage technology wire are also key completion criteria.