Group PMX was retained by the IMF to assist in bringing focus back to key project objectives – project delivery, QA/QC, commercial, and team collaboration. The project involved the complete interior gut renovation of the 1.9 million gross square foot headquarters building (HQ1) while keeping it occupied.
Originally constructed in phases between 1973 and 1998, HQ1 supports approximately 2,300 personnel on thirteen floors above grade plus five floors below grade. The goal of the renewal project was to maximize the use of public and meeting spaces, improve the amount of natural lighting within the offices through improved floor layouts, and upgrade building systems and technology to modern standards.
The renovation provided a new atrium/plaza, kitchen and dining spaces, a parking garage, sublevel mechanical rooms, a rooftop mechanical penthouse, and new roofing. Building system replacements include fire/life safety, sprinklers, air conditioning, boilers, domestic water pumps, 12 miles of water piping, hot water heating, lighting, building controls, and 35,000 light fixtures.
As there were no changes to the façade, construction phasing allowed the building to remain partially occupied while temporarily relocating staff on affected floors to the HQ2 building or across Pennsylvania Avenue to leased space.
Group PMX proposed, and successfully implemented, the company’s CM NeutralSM approach to construction management. The first phase involved restoring relationships and collaboration with all parties – the design professionals, the CM, trade contractors, vendors, stakeholders – to allow open and direct communications to resolve issues and remove obstacles. It also involved a new project organization to remove many processes and protocols that had evolved over time due to lack of trust and had made tasks more difficult and time-consuming to perform. Once the project organization began to function as a team and obstacles were removed, the project began to gain momentum, and we were able to shave a year off the completion schedule. We rescheduled the entire project and developed a strategic phasing plan for the replacement of the mechanical equipment in the penthouse machine room. In an ongoing role, Group PMX provides general senior level management oversight, site superintendent oversight, project scheduling and controls for the remaining phases of the project.
