A project to build five nursing school buildings for Montana State University is requiring a high degree of collaboration between the designers and five general contractors working at sites spread across the state.

Using a $101-million donation from Goosehead Insurance founders Mark and Robyn Jones, the university is building the new facilities at its Bozeman campus and on donated land near existing medical centers in Billings, Great Falls, Kalispell and Missoula. That presented a challenge for the designers, a team of Cushing Terrel and CO Architects, to create plans for buildings that feel like they belong to the same college and meet the nursing program’s needs while also conveying a distinct regional look to belong with their surroundings.

The team working in Billings has to deal with one of the largest building footprints and the smallest lot.
Photo courtesy Langlas & Associates

To do that, the designers used a “kit of parts” approach using unifying elements such as a central “nursing gallery,” flexible learning spaces and study spaces as well as building silhouettes inspired by Montana’s mountains. Each building’s exterior uses similar materials but in a different palette inspired by local geology. For example, the Bozeman facility features shades of tan arranged vertically that are reminiscent of the basalt columns at Palisade Falls, while the Billings facility uses horizontal grays that bring to mind the Rimrocks’ sandstone cliffs.

“They’re kind of their own gems and jewels created here in the Treasure State,” says Trae Schwenneker, design lead at Cushing Terrell.

MSU’s nursing program is similar from site to site, but there are different class sizes anticipated at the different facilities. As a result, some elements were scaled differently across the locations, even though they had similar requirements. The buildings range in size from about 17,000 sq ft to 27,000 sq ft.

Most of the sites were donated near existing health care facilities.
Photo courtesy Langlas & Associates

“There had to be equity in terms of how the students will learn, the amenities that they will have and the experience that they will gain,” says Jonathan Kanda, principal at CO Architects. “So trying to create that equality across five sites, even when they’re disparate in terms of geography and class size, was really important.”

Using a general contractor/construction manager approach, the designers collaborated with five different GCs working the five sites. They include Langlas & Associates in Billings, Martel Construction in Bozeman, Sletten Construction in Great Falls, Swank Enterprises in Kalispell and Jackson Contractor Group in Missoula.

The contractors provided feedback on designs that helped cut costs. Early plans to build mass timber structures had to be abandoned in favor of steel to fit the budget and schedule. The GCs were also concerned about their ability to supply enough material and find experienced mass timber subcontractors in the area, says Noah Taylor, project manager at Langlas.

Even sticking to materials they’re more experienced with, having five overlapping projects with separate contractors presented some concerns over the availability of specialty subcontractors, adds Brooke Logan, project manager at Sletten.

The building silhouettes and exterior cladding were inspired by local geology near each site.
Photo courtesy Cushing Terrell

“Montana, while it’s a very large state, isn’t overly populated,” Logan says. “So the sharing of subcontractors and vendors, and not having them be overtaxed so they can’t meet our deadlines—we all were curious how that could work.”

To manage that, the GCs started discussing subs they were likely to want to use during early planning meetings with each other, Taylor says.

“We just flat out ask each other, ‘Who are the top three subs you’re thinking about using for electrician [or for] MEP?’” he says. “Steel was going to be a big one, and we made sure that we weren’t necessarily all going to be laser-focused on one steel sub as opposed to another.”

While having to share subs presents some scheduling challenges, it also brings a benefit in skilled labor being able to bring lessons learned at one of the sites to the next. Land issues at two of the sites also delayed the start of work at them, but had the benefit of easing some of the overlapping schedule issues.

The designers identified common unifying elements to use across the five facilities.
Photo courtesy Cushing Terrell

“A lot of the submittals that we are getting on other projects, we’ve already answered on Great Falls. So we’ve found some really great efficiencies,” Schwenneker says.

Dealing with the different sites has also necessitated varying strategies from the contractors. In Billings, Langlas is dealing with the smallest site and one of the larger building footprints. The contractor found the tight site did not offer enough room for a laydown area, so it has used its yard across the street from its local office, about seven miles from the site, to prebuild items such as wall framing panels. Then, when they’re ready, they truck the items down to the site and install them.

Work is proceeding well enough that Logan is hoping to finish work at the Great Falls site ahead of schedule this summer. Work at the other sites is expected to complete next year.

“I think everyone realizes how important it is for the state,” says Kevin Nelson, project architect at Cushing Terrell for the Great Falls site. “That’s where the donation came from in the first place, a person realized that the state could use better [medical] services, especially in rural areas.”