Construction on track for $101M TWC buildings

Listen to this article

When the Charlotte area faced 12 straight days of rain in September, it was an annoyance for a lot of residents. But it was very stressful for James Ludington.

As executive vice president of the advanced technology group for New York-based Time Warner Cable, the rain was on Ludington’s mind as crews worked on the company’s two new buildings at 7815 Crescent Executive Drive.

“The rain kept coming, and I was worried we were going to be delayed,” Ludington said. “But they were able to work through it, and we are now on track to have the project finished in September.”

One of the buildings is a four-story, 103,500-square-foot office complex. The other is a two-story, 175,690-square-foot data center.

Charlotte-based Rodgers and Texas-based Balfour Beatty Construction are the project’s construction managers.

Duda Paine is the designer for the office building. Cole Jenest and Stone is handling mechanical, electrical and plumbing engineering. Jones Lang LaSalle is the project manager.

Little Diversified Architectural Consulting is the designer for the data center. Syska Hennessy Group is overseeing mechanical, electrical and plumbing engineering. Mark G. Anderson Consultants will be the owners representative for the building.

Ludington, who is relieved about the pace of the project despite the rain, said he is a fan of Little Diversified’s design for the data center, particularly the way the company organized the interior.

“My team helped choose the contractors and the designers for the building so we could be involved in the way the data center was constructed from the beginning,” he said. “It is important to us that these companies have experience with data centers.”

All of the bathrooms for the data center are on the ground floor, a layout that better protects computer equipment, Ludington said: If bathrooms were on the floor above the computers, water could leak onto equipment below.

The path that electricity takes into the building is also of paramount importance to the data center, Ludington said. Contractors are building the facility so that there are two routes for the utilities to enter the structure.

The data center will also have a built-in redundant power supply and two generators on the site as a backup plan. Fuel for the generators will also be stored on the site, Ludington said. Contractors have also been instructed to make three separate entrances and exits for the company’s data network at the center.

Ludington said redundancy was the most important factor when working with the architects on the building design and how to handle all of the cabling needs at the data center.

“We will actually only be using about half of the building capacity when we move in later this year,” he said. “And all of the power generation and connectivity is set up on the first floor as well in order to keep the heat down for the servers on the second floor.”

According to Mecklenburg County records, construction permits totaling more than $2.5 million were awarded to Rodgers earlier this month for work on the office building portion of the project. Time Warner spokeswoman Melissa Buscher said the total project will cost about $101 million.

BAUGHMAN can be reached at [email protected]

At A Glance

Two buildings, a data center and office complex, are under construction in Charlotte for Time Warner Cable

• Total cost: $101 million
• Location: 7815 Crescent Executive Drive
• Office complex details: Four stories; 103,500 square feet
• Data center details: Two stories; 175,690 square feet
• Construction managers: Rodgers; Balfour Beatty Construction

Source: Mecklenburg Times staff research