Constructing what builders believe to be the most expensive life science project in U.S. history—the more than $1-billion, 1.2-million-sq-ft manufacturing center east of Atlanta for the pharmaceutical giant Shire—required concerted coordination between two construction managers as they worked separately and together to quick erect an unusually complex project. Global, just-in-time scheduling complexities, cross-country design coordination among a dozen different offices, local labor shortfalls and the task of managing their own separate project scopes were some of the issues that Fluor and Turner Construction Co. had to hurdle to get to the finish line on time.
Today, says Jim Sparrow, Fluor’s project director, the team “nailed” the project’s schedule that they first created back in 2012. At the same time, he says that contractors were able to figuratively give back “significant money.”