With an aggressive five-week schedule, Relocation Strategies had a daunting task ahead of them to get the new Creighton Hall and Land O’ Lakes Center moved in and ready to go for the Spring semester at Purdue University. In order to keep the move tidy and on schedule, Relocation Strategies had to coordinate with five separate departments within the animal sciences school as well as three other contractors while on an active campus. Through meticulous planning lead by Lisa Paul, Project Manager at Relocation Strategies and an alumnus of Purdue University, they were able to use multi-phased moving efforts moving from one department to the next.

Creighton Hall and Land O’ Lakes Center

Funding for the new animal life sciences buildings came from multiple sources. First, Purdue initiated and approved funding of the new building through its board of advisors as well as funding from the state of Indiana. In addition to that, Land O’Lakes and major Indiana egg producer Creighton Brothers contributed $5 million each towards the project. 

The facilities include two buildings located on the corner of Harrison and Russell streets. The Hobart and Russell Creighton Hall of Animal Sciences is a three-story, nearly 90,000-square-foot building with state-of-the-art laboratories and classrooms designed for collaboration and team-based learning as well as offices and conference rooms for faculty. The Land O’Lakes Center for Experiential Learning will be a research and teaching space, and the Purina Pavilion, an adjoining structure, will enable hands-on experience with livestock care and has the potential to host extracurricular and youth events like 4-H competitions. The new center also contains offices for the department's faculty and staff, graduate students, scientists with the U.S. Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service's Livestock Behavior Unit, and staff of Indiana animal regulatory agencies.

The 24,662-square-foot Land O’Lakes, Inc. Center for Experiential Learning includes research and teaching space for meat and protein sciences. It will also house the Boilermaker Butcher Block, a retail shop where animal sciences students learn how to tenderize, cut and age meat, in addition to sanitation and food safety practices. The adjoining 7,800-square-foot Purina Pavilion hosts teaching, Extension, extracurricular and youth events focusing on livestock care, handling and evaluation.

“Purdue appears to be a leader – maybe the leader – in active learning and hybrid classrooms and so forth, so the fact that this facility will be very well designed for that is pretty exciting,” said Purdue President Mitch Daniels in a press release. “Assuming that is the learning environment of tomorrow, this building will help us get to the front of that in one of the most important colleges we have.”

Coordinating the Move

Relocation Strategies created, printed, and managed the use of more than 10,000 customized move labels that were used on cartons and equipment. More than 4,000 cartons were used in the move in addition to moving freestanding bench and floor equipment.

“One assessment detail we use to help identify carton quantity for offices on this job was to determine the maximum quantity of cartons each person could move into an office [this did not include support rooms or labs],” said Paul. “We assessed the lineal feet of new storage in each office scenario. This was based on the type of storage provided in each office - files, shelving, drawers, etc. Then, based on the lineal feet each carton could hold, a maximum amount of cartons was determined for each office. This way a person could look at a specific size box –typically 1.5-cubic-foot sized cartons were provided for offices – and know that there would be enough storage for their contents like files, books, supplies, and whatever else.  If they had more than 30, there would not be enough storage. This would lend a visual to each person to determine how much they can move and what they needed to 'purge.'”

Much of the staff at the new animal life sciences building appreciated the attention to detail that Relocation Strategies had during the move. This made life easy in their already busy schedules and provided a much-needed guidance that was vastly beneficial to settling into the new building.

"Relocation Strategies made a daunting task of moving our academic department of 185 Faculty, Staff and Grad Student from three locations into our two new buildings into an efficient and almost enjoyable event," said Dr. Terry Stewart, Professor of Animal Science at Purdue. "The actual move occurred over a five-week period. It was completed ahead of schedule and under budget. We had to move everything from offices to research labs and food processing equipment. Over 100 refrigeration units were moved while keeping the contents chilled or frozen. Classes were in session, so office operations needed to have minimal disruption. Most people were functioning in their new locations within 24 hours of vacating their old office. Lisa Paul was our coordinator. Her meticulous planning and flexibility in responding to events during the move keep things on track. The impact Relocation Strategies and the movers they supervised on the quick resumption of productivity of our department was an unanticipated benefit."

Importance of Deadlines

Being an active campus and an active research center, it was the utmost importance that the move was done quickly and efficiently. With more than 100 refrigeration units holding various items including contents used for research as well as processed meat, it was important to get the units moved, in place, and back up and running before the freezers thawed out. In the process of moving some of the freezers, Paul’s team had to get creative in order to get them out of the building and into the new center. 

Some of the freezers were larger than the doorways and elevators that made up the old animal life sciences building. Therefore, some disassembly was required. According to Paul, she and her team had to dismantle a good portion of an old elevator in order to get a few of the -80-degree freezers out of the building. For the freezers and other units that couldn’t fit into the elevators that were in place, a combination of muscle and a stair climber, which looks a lot like a dolly but can hydraulically actuate to crawl along the stairs, were used to move the units. 

The Relocation Strategies team coordinated with three separate contractors to move these units – which some weighed multiple hundreds of pounds – into their new locations. Paul, hired University Moving and Storage Co., Cardinal Contracting, and Heritage Environmental to work with the five departments that were calling Creighton Hall their new home. Relocation Strategies coordinated with CPM (Construction Project Management) to work alongside the construction contractors that were finishing their portion of the project. This was to make sure construction of the departments was finished and ready for the move. Paul worked closely with the Safety and Security departments to ensure the safety of students and staff alike. Being an active campus, students and staff were moving in and around the old project site and new one. So, security staff had to plan areas and times to keep students from wondering onto active sites or being in the way. Relocation also coordinated with the REM (Radiological & Environmental Management) department when planning and preparing the move of hazardous chemicals by the Heritage Environmental. This was to ensure and identify what how materials were going to be moved and when. Operations & Maintenance was used when the door and other parts of an older elevator had to be removed in order to move the three -80-degree freezers. The last department that Relocation Strategies Coordinated with was Animal Science IT. They worked with the IT staff to plan and schedule their office move and when servers and computers would be back up to operational standards.

University Moving and Storage and Cardinal Contracting brought in light cranes, trucks, and light-heavy equipment to get the freezers and other various heavy items into their new locations.

Heritage Environmental was brought in to properly handle any hazardous material that was on site. If any material needed to be disposed, Heritage provided proper containers and training of handling the materials to keep everyone EPA compliant.

Through meticulous planning and continuous coordination between contractors and school administration officials, Paul and her team at Relocation Strategies were able to move and entire department and their equipment into the new Animal Life Sciences building under budget and in less than the planned five-week schedule. 

The Challenge:

• Move of office contents and general use areas as well as lab equipment and processing rooms
• 40% Faculty and Staff Office, 43% Laboratory space, 8% Teaching, and 4% Study areas.
• Vendor management with a combination of movers and riggers to relocate equipment.
• Ensure that the building is moved in and ready for use before the beginning of the winter semester.

The Solution:

• Worked hand-in-hand with equipment manufacturers and university officials to maintain project continuity with vendors and equipment setup standards
• Five phases over 5 weeks
• Relocated the entire building contents before semester start

The Summary:

• By identifying the move schedule within each phase, this allowed for more efficiency for the movers and the lab personnel to begin unpacking for the labs thus becoming operational ASAP.
• Preparing a schedule for the three different move contractors allowed for coordination of dock space, elevator and stairway use. Timing was also important as the move had to be coordinated around passing periods for classes within the existing buildings.
• Having a scheduled allowed for minimized downtime for freezers to be moved with contents in addition to ones that were empty but required a 48-hour resting period for restart. Coordination with outside technicians to remove freezer doors for the move out of existing spaces by the rigger the same day.
  • Relocation Strategies created, printed and managed the use of over 10,000 customized move labels that were used on cartons and equipment.
  • Over 4,000 cartons were used in the move in addition to moving freestanding bench and floor equipment.