Aman stands in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building slowly chipping away 1950s lead-based paint to reveal a 120-year-old mural hidden on the wall. This is not a scene from the latest National Treasure movie; it is just one facet of reconstruction work the Grunley Construction Company, based in Washington D.C., gets to perform. In fact, the company has discovered original murals under white washed walls and ceilings more than once.
President Ken Grunley explains, “During the late 1950s and 1960s, our country went through a period where new was good, and they white-washed a lot of surfaces in historic buildings. At the Library of Congress and the Eisenhower office buildings, we started stripping years of paint layers, and it was amazing when we uncovered hand painted murals from when these buildings were originally built. And they have now been restored.”
In the past 10 years, Grunley Construction has renovated and modernized more than 4.8 million gross square feet of building space in the Washington, D.C., area. The majority of that work has taken place in occupied buildings.
Four generations
Construction is in the Grunley family DNA. At the turn of the century, architect Abraham Grunstein was a developer and window manufacturer in the Bronx but went bankrupt during the Depression. He moved to Washington after WWII and a construction family was born.
Abraham’s son Martin Grunley founded Grunley-Walsh construction in 1955, which was in business until 1988. The young construction company soon discovered a unique talent for government renovation projects. Through the years Grunley-Walsh worked on projects such as National Institutes of Health, the National Portrait Gallery, multiple U.S. House of Representatives Office Buildings, The Blair House and the Old Post Office.
“They always did government work and they were relatively small, so they originally found a niche of doing renovation work,” explains Ken Grunley.
Ken Grunley joined the family business in the early 70s and one of his first project management roles was on The Blair House. Originally built in 1824, the house is well known as the official residence for guests of the U.S. president. Blair House is primarily used to house foreign heads of state, but has also been used for domestic guests. Several presidents-elect of the United States have spent the night in Blair House before their inauguration.
The two-year renovation of the Blair House culminated for Ken Grunley with a dinner with then-President Ronald Reagan and his wife, Nancy.
In 1988, Grunley-Walsh Construction split and each went their separate ways; the families remain close to this day. Ken and his father, Martin, created Grunley Construction and their passion for historic renovation continued to grow.
Grunley Construction specializes in renovations, restorations, and modernizations of large-scale government and commercial buildings. It also focuses on educational facilities as well as new facilities and additions to existing buildings in the public and private sector. Many projects involve historic, secure, occupied facilities and on occasion a portion or all of the work is performed at night and/or on weekends to meet the special requirements of their clients.
“Half of the people in this company are history buffs,” Ken’s son Adam Grunley adds. “Our modernization projects usually involve demolition of original systems and removing hazardous materials, installing state-of-the-art mechanical and electrical systems while preserving the original historical fabric and in often cases working around occupied tenants.”
Extraordinary effort is made to use new preservation technologies to restore the historic fabric of the building and to re-use historic materials.
Eisenhower Executive Office Building
The history of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building (EEOB) began long before its foundations were laid. In December 1869, Congress appointed a commission to select a site and prepare plans and cost estimates for a new State Department Building. Construction took 17 years as the building rose wing by wing. When the EEOB was finished in 1888, it was the largest office building in Washington, with nearly two miles of black and white tiled
corridors. Almost all of the interior detail is cast iron, plaster and masonry; the use of wood was minimized to ensure fire safety. A number of monumental curving staircases of granite with more than 4,000 individually cast bronze
balusters are capped by four skylight domes and two stained glass rotundas.
Designated a National Historic Landmark in 1969, the building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places and the District of Columbia Inventory of Historic Sites a few years later. Fast forward to modern day and the EEOB didn’t have central air conditioning, 21st century mechanical and electrical systems or, adequate “anti-terrorism force protection.”
Grunley Construction was the design/build contractor on the 17th Street Modernization of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building (EEOB) project, which covered 192,000 sf of the massive building’s 692,000 sf of space. During renovation, the construction crew uncovered those hand painted murals. Grunley Construction is presently the design/build contractor for the final phase of the building’s overall project, with a 2011 completion date.
Today the EEOB is regarded as one of the nation’s premier architectural treasures and is a designated National Historic Landmark. The structure’s several wings have been the subjects of various restoration and renovation projects for much of the past 20 years.
“It’s truly an honor to be working in that building,” Grunley continues. “It’s one of the most unique buildings in Washington, D.C.”
FDA Building One
Another one of Grunley’s premier renovations was for the 102,000 sf, four-story historic Building One of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Headquarters of the Naval Surface Warfare Center for 52 years, it now accommodates portions of the FDA’s Office of the Commissioner and related executive functions.
When Grunley started renovation in November 2007, it was the only original building standing on the site. Because of Grunley’s attention to historic detail, they found new windows to match the original ones. In view of the substantial demolition required and the historical significance of the building, Grunley, as always, relied on a few closely trusted subcontractors for the project.
“Building One now serves as the focal point of entry to the FDA campus – the most beautiful, environmentally friendly, state-of-the-art infrastructure for regulatory science,” notes Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration Andrew C. von Eschenbach, M.D.
On the project, Grunley’s scope of work included construction of a new main entrance to the campus with a new security screening pavilion and new roadways, sidewalks, stone walkways, a greenway and circular driveway with surrounding landscape work. The addition serves as an atrium and pedestrian walkway to join Building One with the recently constructed Central Shared Use (CSU) building. Interior work included the fit-out of modern office space and many historical renovations.
The project was designed and constructed to achieve, at a minimum, Silver-level certification for the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design (LEED) rating system, with the possibility of Gold certification pending final review.
New technology
Well-known for its expertise in logistically-complex projects, Grunley is at the forefront of Building Information Modeling (BIM) technology adoption. BIM helps improve coordination between design and construction while calling attention to the related challenge of managing the flow of information. This includes information such as project email, action items, markup sessions, transmittals, requests for information, LEED certifications and more. This has led the firm to seek a comparable information management solution.
“In addition to LEED, where I do think we’re on the cutting edge, we have also recently hired Michael Tardif. Michael is a recognized industry leader in BIM. He literally wrote the book,” said Vice President and General Manager Greg Druga.
BIM is a 3D tool that creates a virtual model of a building. When fully integrated into the design and construction process, it streamlines the flow of building information, eliminating many unnecessary or non-value-added tasks. “One of the things we are trying to do with Mike Tardif and BIM is to become the leader in the use of BIM in historic modernization and renovation. One aspect we are exploring and have used on several projects is the use of 3D laser scan technology. It is actually a small scanner that looks like a surveying instrument. This device has a laser on it and we can insert it into spaces that we can’t readily access to survey what the existing conditions are,” Druga says.
“If you can imagine, if there’s a space like the Vice President or a commissioner’s office where we can’t go in and remove the ceiling and then draw the plans, fabricate materials and come back six months later and then do the work, we need to somehow know what’s above his ceiling before we get there. Accessing though a light, or an access panel, or a device opening, we can get above those spaces and use this 3D laser scan technology and identify all the existing conditions,” he explains.
Ken Grunley and Greg Druga both agree that the industry is moving toward integrated project delivery. IPD leverages BIM and related tools to enable the owner, architect, contractor and other major players to operate in more of a collaborative way to deliver the entire project.
Michael Tardif describes a typical Grunley project — the phased renovation of occupied, historic buildings — as, “doing a heart, lung, liver, kidney and stomach transplant while the patient is awake and without leaving any scars.” Grunley intends to use BIM and IPD to meet the demanding technical, aesthetic and logistical requirements of these projects.
People management
Grunley Construction’s expansion has led to the Washington Business Journal’s continued recognition of the company as being among the top 20 largest general contractors and interior construction companies in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area. Engineering News Record ranked Grunley Construction #268 among the “Top 400 Contractors” in the nation. The firm is also ranked among the “Top Green Contractors” in the nation.
At the end of the day, Grunley has been able to stay in business for 50 years and continue expanding because of its familial atmosphere. Grunley says his and Druga’s doors are always open for people to discuss any issues they’d like. With all this one-on-one mentoring, Grunley suspects this is why the company has been able to avoid a lot of turnover through the years.
“I think that’s one of the great strengths of the company: though we have approximately 275 employees we take tremendous strides and put a lot of effort into keeping that family feel. We never want to get so big that we feel like we lose that feeling. We don’t want to feel like a big company, we want to feel like a big family,” says Grunley.
Grunley gets so involved with the employees he actually sits down with each and every new employee to discuss their families and background as well as likes and dislikes. In addition, he and Druga host a town hall meeting every six months where employees ask questions about anything they wish, and periodically host breakfasts for all new employees.
According to Grunley, this kind of personalized communication is the main goal of the company as it moves forward in the coming year. He says it keeps employees at a comfort level, especially in tough economic times.
“We try to connect with them personally, and I think the communication and connecting with people personally is the biggest thing when people are concerned about the economy or jobs or where we’re heading. So that’s what we are trying to do: have a high level of communication. We are fortunate that we are government contractors, and we are hopeful that given some of the stimulus activities out there, that is going to generate some great opportunities for us and our people as well as the other local contractors in the next few months,” concludes Ken Grunley.
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