May occupancy expected for Weather Center

May Occupancy Expected For Weather Center

CNHI News Service

By Randall Turk

Transcript Business Editor

From a distance the National Weather Center building appears serene, the light and shadows skipping across recessed exterior walls.

But inside workers swarm through the 244,000-square-foot monolith in efforts to complete it by April. Officials say the $67 million building is 90 percent complete, with wall finishing, doors, cabinetry, floor coverings and high-tech wiring the primary tasks remaining.

Tuesday, members of the Norman Chamber of Commerce Weather Committee picked their way through the dust and construction debris inside the weather center to view the framework of what the building will become. The offices, labs and classrooms will be shared by OU’s academic meteorology and research programs and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Norman-based organizations. About 550 students, faculty and government researchers will occupy the building.

The 30-month weather center construction project has required a huge coordination effort involving the university, government agencies and the contractor, Boldt construction Co. Dave Stanton, construction administrator for Beck & Lan Daly architects, said planning and design of the building took two years. Stanton and NOAA program manager Doug Forsythe helped conduct tours through the building Tuesday and later met with The Transcript to discuss details of the project.

“We’re in the final phase, with final details being lined up,” Forsythe said. With the exception of groundwater encountered during excavation, the project is said to have encountered no problems of any significance. “We’ve shifted our schedule a bit, with completion expected around the first part of April instead of March,” Forsythe said.

Stanton and Forsythe indicated the interior of the building will be finished from the top floor down, with some agencies moving in as early as May.

The weather center is designed not only to shelter from the elements, but to observe them. A huge atrium and another smaller one rise through the center of the building. Skylights and large windows admit plenty of sunlight and show large expanses of clouds floating past. Windows even illuminate stairwells of the building. Atop one of two sixth-floor “antenna farms,” a rooftop observation deck affords a 360-degree view for miles around.

• On the fifth floor, labs and large classrooms outfitted with the latest electronic features will be shared by the OU and NOAA agencies.

• The School of Meteorology will occupy the fourth floor’s offices and classrooms, and a library will serve both OU and NOAA.

• The third floor will house the Oklahoma Climatological Survey offices, computer center and operations lab, OU geosciences and the NOAA operations center.

• The second floor lobby will connect the National Storm Prediction Center, the National Severe Storms Laboratory and the National Weather Service’s national and local forecast offices with a shared research area.

• The partially underground first floor will include two large tiered classroom/auditoriums, the weather center director’s office, conference rooms and the building’s food service area. Adjoining the first level will be a receiving dock and a mobile research bay equipped with trolley lifts and a machine shop, where NOAA agencies will outfit their specialized weather research vehicles.

Atop the 178 foot high building, weather antennae will be secured to rigid steel “haloes” on a 50-foot mast. The hollow mast will be equipped with ladders to permit climbers to place and adjust the antennae. Someone inside the mast will be able to pull hooks up through the structure to connect the antennae.

The weather center has been designed to fulfill its technical functions for some time to come, Stanton said. “There are so many built-in redundancies to give it a certain amount of flexibility as technology changes,” he said.

There also are certain safeguards with more basic functions. For instance, the building has been designed to withstand 144 mile-per-hour winds.

Another safety feature: The 250-seat auditorium on the first floor, underground and sheltered by thick concrete walls, can double as a tornado shelter.

Randall Turk (405) 366-3547at rturk@normantranscript.com