Lancaster Country Club

Lancaster Country Club

General Contractor: Wohlsen Construction

Location: Lancaster, PA

Project Description:

Every framing project has its own story. However, it isn’t every day that a commercial wood framing contractor is awarded a project billed as a Defining Moment. Such was the case when Lancaster Country Club (LCC) launched its $20 million renovation project to construct a new Activities Building, Club House, Pro Shop, Paddle Shop, and Pool. LCC selected the project name to represent the immense scope and importance of the project. The facilities upgrades are part of the country club’s preparation to host the 2024 U.S. Women’s Open. In addition to the high-profile nature of the project, the construction was complicated by an aggressive timeline, the topography of the job site, and our ability to safely complete the build while the country club remained open to its members.

With an aggressive schedule required to meet the Memorial Day 2021 deadline, Wohlsen Construction knew it needed a partner who was not only trusted but also had expertise in an innovative framing approach that would accelerate the project schedule and reduce safety hazards throughout construction.

For this project, our scope included designing, building, delivering, and installing 275 wall panels – all built off-site – for four buildings totaling 30,778 sq. ft. Quality Buildings’ pre-fab process resulted in reducing the construction schedule as well as the number of people required to be on-site. Both factors play a direct result in improving the overall safety of the job site.

As part of our pre-construction process, our work started by reviewing and resolving conflicts in the wall panel design between the architectural and structural drawings before getting to the job site. With this highly detailed project, our approach to identifying and correcting discrepancies at this stage is critical to ensuring constructability, while keeping the project on schedule and controlling costs. Given the escalation of material costs and supply issues, Quality Buildings further worked to control costs by getting submittals approved early.

Given the topography of the site, extreme coordination was also required as a result of a significant drop-off on one side, as well as a road that ran along the active construction zone. Further complicating the project was the closure of two sides of the job site to allow for the pool construction, which happened simultaneously with our framing work. To keep the project safely moving forward and allow us to effectively and safely position the wall panels we utilized a 35-ton mobile crane.

As with any construction project, proactive thinking and problem-solving skills are essential. The Quality Buildings team demonstrated both characteristics multiple times throughout the project. Our team was able to quickly pivot and add additional load to the roof trusses to accommodate a change in the sprinkler system design when it was learned that the original system did not meet the specifications. A challenging roof system also required us to get creative across the top of the elevator to keep it within the roof framing as intended. To do this we needed to reconfigure the trusses during the design phase of the project. Later, the Quality Buildings team proactively investigated materials specified for window installation and recommended a change to adhere to the window manufacturer’s warranty. Our extra care and proactive thinking saved the GC and owner headaches, while also ensuring the materials being used aligned with the warranty on the windows.