Gulf State Park Learning Campus
Project Overview
White-Spunner Construction completed the 26,000 square-foot Learning Campus and Education Center at Gulf State Park. This project included renovating the Park Headquarters Building site and adding new indoor and outdoor classroom buildings, a student lodge, an auditorium, and the Woodside Grill restaurant. Extensive walkways, landscaping, sitework, and furnishings were also included. The Learning Campus was one of the first buildings in the world to receive IBHS FORTIFIED COMMERCIAL™ – Hurricane Bronze Level certification (the first two buildings to ever earn this certification are also part of Gulf State Park). The buildings are also LEED Silver Certified.
Some of the challenges of this job involved the site in general. With the owners being the State of Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, White-Spunner had to be mindful of the trees throughout the wooded nature preserve. We worked with the full-time, on-site arborist to remove only the trees necessary for hardscapes and vertical buildings; we coordinated diligently with subcontractors to create workarounds and determine the best options to bring in the necessary equipment to complete scopes of work on time. We also had to re-sequence the entire project and accelerate the construction of the Woodside Grill when the owners found out about a National Geographic grant. We met the qualification deadline and the grant was awarded to our project.