A Place for Kids
By K. Robert Wendel

A war on terror and longer overseas commitments mean greater pressures on military families, with spouses left to juggle the day-to-day activities, bills-and child care.

At Davis Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, the military is stepping up to address the childcare issue with the construction of a new 28,000-sq.-ft. childcare facility under a hard bid contract between the Army Corps. of Engineers and the Tucson office of Stronghold Engineering.

The project, which started in November 2002, wrapped up in December.

"It's punch list time," said Dennis Manley a project superintendent. "It's 10 percent of the value but it seems to be 90 percent of the work."

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The $6 million center, designed by BPLW Architects & Engineers of Albuquerque through the corps of engineers, has a capacity of 300 children and features 13 classrooms, including a dedicated infant room, along with administration offices, a multipurpose room and fully kitchen and laundry. Under Air Force guidelines, each classroom must feature natural daylighting while allowing full observation of the classroom from the corridor.

"Each classroom has to have natural lighting, so that makes for some long corridors," said architect Maria Shelton of BPLW Architects & Engineers. "One of the challenges was trying to break up the corridors so they don't seem so long."

Each classroom is fully equipped with cabinetry and a changing station, with durable and long lasting finishes throughout the childcare center. Every classroom has its own "child-sized" toilet facilities, with the fixtures at a smaller scale and height than regular toilets and sinks. As with most corps projects, the childcare center features a beefy design for durability and a long life cycle.

"There is no compromise with the corps on quality," said Pat Lineen, vice president of Aricon 3, a Tucson concrete contractor. "A lot of times, not every subcontractor is up to the job. At this project, there isn't a weak link in there. The job is strong all the way through and there's not a shoddy piece of out there, which is impressive."

The project sits on 6-in. slab-on-grade foundation with interior steel stud and masonry bearing walls with a masonry enclosure. Tucson's Bratton Masonry place more than 25,000 units of split-face and fluted block and Aricon 3 poured nearly 4,000 cu. yds. of concrete.

One of the challenges facing contractors on the project was staffing. Due to security concerns, if a worker failed to show, contractors couldn't pull another worker off another job because of security clearance issues.

"Security is really tight so you have to pay attention to getting people registered when you switch labor," Lineen said. "You don't go out there and just drive on the base."