• Posted: January 29, 2019
• Construction Technology

Mike Schwarz, Vice President of Operations and Ralph Scavone, Senior Project Manager of Elmhurst Illinois’ Advent Systems, Inc., recounted how a security system integration was successfully completed at McDonald’s Chicago Corporate headquarters. The project had an extremely accelerated schedule, dependent upon a tightly coordinated effort of all the participating trades. Under the direction of the general contractor, Executive Construction Inc. and the owner, Sterling Bay, Advent Systems’ participation helped ensure a successful project.

The new McDonald ‘s headquarters building, formally the site of Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Studios, inhabits floors 2-9 of the building, with the first-floor perimeter leased to retailers. In discussing the challenges of the project, Schwarz and Scavone explained how this project came together and how the building security system had to be integrated as two separate entities with access from the Sterling Bay base building for both clients. The project scope included visitor management, video surveillance, and access control/alarm monitoring systems for the base building and tenant spaces.

“We provided a high-level security system, IP Intercoms, and destination dispatch interface to elevators and turnstiles that were provided by others. Employees present their office access card to a HID reader or use their mobile phone employee credential to access entrance into the building, while visitors can only enter if a McDonald’s employee makes a formal request. Visitors receive bar code access cards at the front desk. The bar code strip identifies visitors by name through a barcode reader, allowing the visitor only temporary access to a specific floor via the elevator.”

Schwarz and Scavone agreed that they knew this project was going to be a particular challenge because it was being constructed from the ground up and the schedule was RFP dictated. All of the trades had to wait for a final design and ongoing construction changes that took place.

“The difficulty was figuring for those constraints with timeframes. The main challenge on this project was how those design changes affected the construction schedule. Because of the nature of our work we are one of the last trades to start the project. It was amazing how the general contractor and all of the trades worked together in such a coordinated effort to complete the project on time for the client.”

Executive Construction made a time commitment to the client. McDonald’s personnel and staff planned a move-in date of April 2018. Milestone dates were stipulated by the general contractor which meant all trades including Advent Systems needed to provide additional manpower and overtime to accommodate the demanding schedule.

“Several contractors worked two shifts at times. Our work is contingent on the other trades finishing their work. To complicate things further, a high-level security system integration requires considerable IT participation to support the security system installation programming. The push was on to have as many as 16 people on-site to get the project up and running successfully.”

The City of Chicago requires conduit for all electrical systems including low voltage systems. Several electrical contractors participated in the installation of the raceway to support the security system installation too.

“Our partners were mission critical to Advent Systems success with difficult conduit installations and wiring which required trained and certified electricians to handle the installation. All trades logged over 300,000 manhours without a single reportable injury.”

Advent Systems integrated a high-level security surveillance system for McDonald’s new headquarters, but they could not have done it without the coordinated effort led by the general contractor and all of the trades committed to completing the project on time for the client.