After a tornado devastated Tarleton State University in 2016, the school faced a dilemma when it came time to rebuild: how to spend every penny of the insurance money so as to not risk losing leftover funds, but, at the same time, not go over budget.

Since Tarleton’s insurance claim allocated most of the funds to the Animal and Plant Sciences building, the university’s College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences set out to complete a $9.1-million, 70,000-sq-ft complex to provide a centralized educational facility, a covered home for livestock and a horticulture lab.

The main building consists of six state-of-the-art labs for animal and plant science research along with two laboratory preparation spaces and a retail store. The complex also includes a 42,000-sq-ft covered, open-air livestock area for animals as part of an active learning environment. And to replace the building decimated by the tornado, Linbeck constructed an 8,000-sq-ft building for the planting and greenhouse program.

Because the university’s wish list exceeded the budget, Linbeck held meetings to find ways to trim the list and acted as a mediator between the owner and designers to manage costs while maintaining expectations. The project stayed under budget, and the remaining money paid for items outside the scope of the contract. 

Unusually rainy weather delayed the overall schedule. With the university 75 miles from a major city, Linbeck had to help local contractors fill manpower gaps so the project could keep pace. Linbeck was able to recover a significant amount of time—the equivalent of squeezing 60 weeks of work into a 45-week period—and completed the project in time for the first day of classes.

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