Stepping into the Empty Space

OK, so between our benefit, Halloween and my desire to see EVERY SINGLE MINUTE OF ENTOURAGE EVER FILMED, I have not been writing about progress at the new space, and there has been amazing, astonishing progress. So, here's a quick recap of what happening in our build out:

Week 3-4

This week was mainly about pouring the new concrete for the floor. The final amount, which had been quoted at $21,000 ended up being about $19,000 of which $4,000 was already budgeted so it could have been worse. When the space was clear, the concrete truck came, a sight that delighted my four year old daughter although the noise scared her a little. You pay for the materials, but you also pay for the truck hourly, and given the subcontractor's desire to limit the truck's time, I assume that portion is non-trivial. The truck poured concrete into the bobcat, which then drove it into place and dumped it. The concrete was then shovelled into place by one team, followed by two other guys who specialialized in smoothing it out. I asked if I could write my name in it, and the GC got a pained look and whispered, "wait till these guys leave." They work really hard to smooth it out perfectly, and then some asshole comes along with a sharp stick. Fair enough.

And of course, there are more pics in the Week 3 & 4 Gallery

The floor needs to be poured in two halves, primarily to allow the plumbers to finish their work and to wait for the city to examine the piping. While we wait, here is a little walking tour of the space at the end of week 4.



Week 5-6

After weeks of seeing nothing but empty space, finally I get to see some structures go into the space. We've completed the floor, which means we can start putting in the steel supports for the utility room and the blocks for the walls. We were kind of on hold for 5 days while the concrete cured, but now we're off and running. And look! A wall, a FREAKING WALL!!

And don't forget the week 5-6 gallery...

Suddenly, the space felt a lot more real to me...

Now, some of you may remember the OH GOD WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE problem with the trusses and the roof. As you can see, the building is still standing, and the truss repairs also happened this week. These needed to be completed before most of the walls could be erected, as the truss is being secured with these 75' metal rods that can't be negotiated around the walls. They actually suspend the roof on supports they bring in while they fix/replace sections of the truss. It's excitingly disaster-y. The truss repair was completed in only four days, and then the steel guys came in to start building the platform for our heating units. As part of our new "don't collapse the building" strategy, the heating units need to be inside the building as they are too heavy for the roof. Even the air condensors for the air conditioning will need to sit on a platform bridging the walls. The trusses can't support anything but the roof; we're going to build separate supports for the light grid that will use our new walls.

Now, we've had some delays. At this point, the extra work on the floor has caused the project to run two weeks behind. At this point, have no idea how to make this up, but Trent is going to talk to our electrician and drywallers to see if we can put some more labor on the job when they come in in a month. But I didn't care; seeing the building start to emerge in the real world after weeks of doing nothing but demolition and prep work has me too excited. That is nothing compared with the next few weeks when I finally get to step into one of the actual spaces...

Weeks 7-10

The first space is framed out!

And more picture tastyness in the Week 7-9 Gallery

This actually made me choke up. Sure, it's a little like a concrete bunker, but I can feel what the space is going to be like. How the stage is really proportioned. How intimate and warm the performance space will feel. Don't get me wrong, I love lobbies and HVAC and all that stuff, but this room is what we are going through all this effort for. I'm not one of those directors who can read a floorplan and get a feeling for the set. Even models often fool me. In this case, we didn't build a model to save a lot of money but I have been jumpy about my decisions. Once I saw the walls going up, I knew it had to be perfect, because we can't afford to change anything. Move a wall, miss the opening and go $20,000 into debt. All the conceptual work we've put into the space has to work because we can't make any major adjustments. Fortunately, I LOVE MY NEW SPACE.

The next few weeks are about building walls. We are framing in all the spaces so that the electrical and mechanical work can begin in early November. Some walls we can't put up yet, because we still need to fabricate and install the supports to hang the light grid off of and get the (very large) heating units into the space before we box them in. So, concrete is going onto the HVAC platform early so we don't have to delay the walls. Of course, no one is entirely sure when the HVAC equipment will arrive, but we're hopeful it will be prompt.

And, Trent figures out a way to parallelize some of the construction work so we'll be able to pick up the two weeks we've lost dealing with the floor!

Lest things feel like they're going to smoothly, Carmen (the electrician) comes to me and--since he's done theatres before, god-bless-him--asks, "Aren't you going to put sound into these spaces?"

I say, "Of course?"

He replies, "Not on these plans you aren't."

Ah. So, I don't know how to read the electrical diagrams and apparently, we've left sound off entirely. So we have an emergency four hour meeting at my house, and attempt to find a way to cut enough costs to cover the new floor and install the lighting equipment. We're now about $25,000 over budget, but I am hoping that when Carmen redoes the numbers we'll bring that back into the realm of the possible. Hmmmm...

The last two weeks go incredibly quickly, it looks like the theatre is sprouting up all around us. Check out this teeny iPhone video I made with a walkthrough of the entire space at the end of week nine and seriously, look at the Week 9 Gallery. (And if anyone knows why all this black shows up around my video, drop me an email).



Truly. Amazing.

See you at Week 10.

Current score
Weeks in Construction: 9
Money committed/spent: $308,000
Days Behind: 5
Over Budget: $25,000