The Contemporary Austin began working on a Master Plan for Laguna Gloria in 2014, the goal of which was to envision a landscape that expressed Laguna Gloria’s unique cultural and ecological stories as a venue for making and experiencing art, aligning the site to The Contemporary Austin’s mission & vision.

After the completion of the Master Plan in 2015, the design team was tasked with designing and constructing enhancements to the visitor experience and orientation, while recognizing the historic nature of the site. These elements, making up what is known as the Arrival Garden, include a new parking scheme, fence, pedestrian and vehicular entry gates, visitor services and retail buildings, and a shade structure over the new entry, as well as the renovation of the existing Gatehouse to provide formal visitor restrooms and updated office space.

Benz Resource Group was hired after the completion of the Master Plan to manage the Phase 1 improvements at the Arrival Garden seen as a catalyst for the larger landscape-driven project. BRG is working closely with The Contemporary Austin to negotiate contracts, establish budgets, and manage the work flow through construction.

In partnership with the Downtown Austin Alliance and the City of Austin, the Austin Parks Foundation began its effort to shine the spotlight on Republic Square Park in 2016 – to honor its important role in our city’s history and increase its potential for the future. Improvements to Republic Square Park included new irrigation systems, new grading, retaining walls, lawns, plantings and hardscape, as well as the design and construction of a new vendor building.

Benz Resource Group provided project management services through the design and construction phases. The park reopened in Fall 2017 and the small public bathroom and cafe building are anticipated to be complete later this year.

Completed in July 2017, the Operations Building is a 2-Story, 18,000 square foot steel structure and metal clad building that houses the University Police Department, Mail and Copy Services, Procurement Services, and Master Planning.

Two of our clients, The Contemporary Austin and the Waller Creek Conservancy, joined forces to present Forever Bicycles, a sculpture comprised of 1,254 steel bicycle frames by conceptual artist Ai Wewei on the bank of the Waller Delta – where Waller Creek meets Lady Bird Lake. Benz Resource Group was engaged to manage the permitting on City of Austin Parkland, site work, and lighting for the piece. BRG worked intensely in collaboration with The Contemporary Austin’s exhibitions team and the Waller Creek Conservancy staff in order to accomplish this public installation.

Renovations to St. Edward’s University’s iconic Main Building began in July 2016 and were completed in Spring 2017. The work included repairs to the roofing, windows, interior spaces, limestone façade and central tower.

The Waller Creek Conservancy, in partnership with the City of Austin’s Parks and Recreation Department and Watershed Protection Department, is developing a chain of parks around a restored Waller Creek in downtown Austin. Running from Waterloo Park 15^th Street to Lady Bird Lake, the new Waller Creek parks district will include more than 37 acres of newly designed and connected urban parks and public open space, and more than three miles of new hike and bike trails.

A Framework Plan is a planning tool that prioritizes strategic thinking over the more prescriptive and programmatic approach of a traditional Master Plan. The recommendations and guidelines of this plan are tailored to analytic and technical criteria in order to find “footholds” for working within the dynamic complexity of the creek environment.

As project manager for the capital improvement projects for Waller Creek, we worked with the entire team managing the agreements, scheduling work flow, coordinating cost estimates and establishing budgets.

The Munday Library – an addition to and renovation of the campus’s existing library – was imagined as a single central space that enhances and catalyzes interaction around technology and group learning. The new library also provides a signature academic space that embodies the values of the university: intrinsic connection to the community and grounding in the natural world.

The Munday Library also reconnects a neglected grove of live oaks to the network of shady courtyards that dot the campus hilltop. Framed views at either end of the building emphasize these connections and establish the library as the academic heart of the university. Activity inside is highly visible upon arrival and late into the night when the library becomes a beacon glimpsed from paths in all directions. A courtyard situated at the building entrance provides shaded relief and acts as an extension of the commons with casual seating and outdoor study space.

Auditorium Shores, the “front lawn” of our city, was renovated to create an improved event lawn, expanded off-leash dog park, improved hike and bike trails and irrigated lawns and planted areas. The shoreline of Lady Bird Lake is naturalized to provide sustainable habitat and the construction was phased so that portions of the park were open at all times. This project was a public private partnership with the City of Austin Parks and Recreation Department and the Austin Parks Foundation and funded through public and private sources.

The Onion Creek Metro Park is 555 acres of parkland located in southeast Travis County, along 2.5 miles of Onion Creek. The relatively flat, wooded Onion Creek Metro Park was purchased by the City of Austin in the late 1990s, making it the largest city-owned park in Austin. Nearly 15 years later, a new special district creates a funding source and opportunity for long-term, ongoing maintenance to be used to build and maintain the parkland.

Responding to the unique ecology of the park and creekshed, and based on input from residents, community leaders, and city planners, Benz Resource Group guided the multi-disciplinary team through the master planning process. This project was a public private partnership between the City of Austin Parks and Recreation Department, Benchmark Development and the Austin Parks Foundation.

Our Lady Queen of Peace Chapel is a simple wood framed 100 year old structure that was remodeled to infuse it with light, warm materials, improved comfort and elegance. The building was once a military barrack, a bowling alley and a machine shop before it was fashioned in to a chapel quite a number of years ago.  The project’s task was to bring it back to its original beauty, improve the lighting and acoustics, install new mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems and to make an addition to provide office spaces for the Campus Ministry department.

Wood harvested from an old tree on site was used to build the altar and religious furnishings. The offices for the Campus Ministry were built as an addition connected by a glassy public space while outside, a new contemplative garden was created providing a place for the campus community for prayer and quiet reflection.

The Alumni Gym was built by hand in 1950 by the Brothers of Holy Cross at a time when air conditioning was a luxury and so this 14,400 square foot brick structure had none, nor did it have insulation or waterproofing. The building exterior of Austin Common brick is an original campus standard and needed to remain therefore a new wall system with insulation and waterproofing was built inside the exterior walls. Tucked within this new envelope are mechanical ducting and storage faced with wood, keeping the feeling of the old but functioning in the present. Remodeling the existing locker and toilet rooms provided new offices and workout spaces. A new entry structure was added to better address the campus center and serves as an open porch for students to meet.

A new 30,000 square foot iconic structure now sits on the shores of Lady Bird Lake, the Topfer Theatre, clad in bright blue aluminum panels, offers 428 seats with excellent acoustics, state-of-the-art performance equipment, intimate sight lines, fully trapped stage and fly tower and outstanding public lobby spaces and lounges. The balcony overlooking the People’s Plaza is used for new commissioned brief plays available to the public before shows.  The large rain garden fronting the park is designed to capture and clean that important first inch of rainwater that otherwise would wash dust and dirt in to the lake. The entrance to the theatre faces ZACH’s campus, now three theatres and a production and rehearsal facility, and is flanked by two very large glass curtains that theatre-goers enter through to the mystery and delight within.

The North Austin Community Association lobbied long and hard to get a new recreation facility in their neighborhood. Through a new public/private joint venture between the City of Austin and the YMCA of Austin, this new LEED Silver facility provides much needed community spaces, a swimming pool, gymnasium, child watch center and workout spaces. A new community garden will be built as part of the City’s Art In Public Places program.

The new School of Leadership Studies Building, located on the campus of Kansas State University, opened in January 2010. The 36,000 square foot, $11.2 million facility provides a state-of-the-art teaching environment designed for collaborative and inclusive pedagogy, and was the first LEED Certified building on K-State’s campus. With student organization offices and meeting rooms, faculty offices, informal meeting areas and a cafe, as well as three classrooms, three seminar rooms, and a 200-seat Town Hall auditorium, this building is a center of activity in the heart of the campus.

Doyle Hall, on the campus of St. Edward’s University, served as a women’s dormitory from the early 1950’s and was renovated to provide faculty offices, a psychology research center, administrative offices and a coffee shop. At the east end of the building is a new addition that creates a central courtyard dominated by a large oak tree. The addition provides three classrooms on the ground floor with faculty offices above. Facing west, the addition is screened by a horizontal louver system allowing natural light to flood the active hallway outside the classrooms and the Dean’s Suite on the second floor. This 25,000 square foot remodel and 8,184 square foot addition cost $7.9 million and was completed on schedule for the Fall 2009 semester.

The new Jarvis Wing at the Beach Museum of Art was built to provide galleries for temporary exhibits, an outdoor sculpture court and curatorial facilities. In addition, some areas within the existing museum building underwent remodeling, including mechanical upgrades and window glass replacement. The 17,000 square foot addition was completed in the fall of 2007 for a total project budget of $6.5 million.

Fleck Hall served St. Ed’s as a science building from 1958 to 2007, when it was converted to a general purpose classroom and meeting room building with a full renovation of the existing two floors and an addition of a third floor and elevator tower. This 28,000 square foot building was extremely tight on schedule and budget, calling upon the management, design and construction teams to be creative every step of the way. As the first building encountered at the university’s main entrance, Fleck Hall serves as a reminder that re-use is not only viable, but optimal.

The SEDL office building provides 49,300 square feet of Class A office space and a garden retreat for staff. Benz Resource Group was hired by the Southwest Educational Development Laboratory (SEDL) at the very start of the project to assist in developing project budgets, selecting an architect and determining whether to build new, purchase and remodel or relocate to a new rental space. Once the decision was made to build at the RMMA development, Benz Resource Group monitored the professional services’ progress, schedules and budgets through move-in, representing SEDL with regulatory agencies, Austin Energy District cooling representatives and the development management.

This 27,000 square foot men’s dorm was built in 1963 and served the University’s freshmen men until the spring of 2005, when the building interior was remodeled to provide faculty offices. Benz Resource Group assisted in setting the budget, selecting the architects and general contractor, purchasing furniture and coordinating move-in.  At $2.0 million, the budget was tight, but the construction schedule was even tighter: construction began when the students moved out in May and was complete in time for faculty to occupy in August.

This history museum telling the story of Washington State is located in an urban historic district and is directly adjacent to the most historic of Tacoma’s buildings, the old Union Station. Roughly 100,000 square feet in size and $26 million in construction costs, the museum was designed for maximum flexibility of programming, yet with very tight environmental controls for the protection of historic artifacts. Mechanical and electrical systems designed to maintain the proper humidity, temperatures and particulate levels were very important. In addition, security was a high priority and was complicated by the requirement that physical and electronic systems be nearly invisible! Twelve consulting firms overlaying design and technical requirements were coordinated and incorporated under Susan Benz’ direction.

The Beach Museum of Art, nestled among trees in the oldest and most beautiful corner of this medium-sized campus, bisects an important pedestrian path linking ‘town’ and ‘gown’. The building houses the University’s art collection and provides much needed multi-purpose space as well as additional classrooms for the Art Department. The functions of the building were separated into two wings bridging the pedestrian path; one serves as the ‘vault’ for the display, storing and curation of the art, and the other for academic and public functions. Through a value-engineering program, the $6 million budget was stretched to upgrade and improve this very important corner of the campus and its grounds.

Connecting the plaza of the Washington State History Museum to the rooftop of the new Museum of Glass, this pedestrian bridge not only crosses four lanes of traffic and multiple railroad lines, it is a destination in itself. Internationally renowned glass artist Dale Chihuly worked in tandem with the design team to design pavilions filled with his art, making the bridge itself exhibit space. Susan Benz maintained the project cost control, conducted the project meetings and maintained the permanent record. She served as Project Manager, coordinating the design work of the civil engineers, bridge designers, architects and artists through the design development phase of the project.

Lechmere was planned as a $50 million, multi-modal light rail and bus terminus with an auto “kiss and ride”, parking facility and electrical power sub-station. The technical and engineering complexity of this project came from the necessity to coordinate the efforts of multiple transportation, civil and electrical power engineers, representing three competing companies, who were not always in agreement on the most cost-effective solution to the design puzzle. Susan Benz’ negotiation skills effectively secured their cooperation and a design solution. Due to changing program requirements and the complexities of the site, this project went through multiple design schemes over a five-year period, during which time quality control of construction documents was provided by Susan Benz. She served as the Project Manager for three of the five years until the program was put on hold due to economic constraints of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Palmer Auditorium, an architectural icon of the Austin townscape, was to be remodeled and augmented to create a fine arts performing center with three performance halls, a rehearsal hall and support functions. For a period of over a year, while the owner, ARTS Center Stage, continued to organize, Susan Benz provided Project Management services representing the owner. During that time, while employed by the associate architect to the design architect, Skidmore, Owens and Merrill, she coordinated meetings, sought design and technical proposals from consultants, negotiated contracts and wrote and implemented a plan to meet the minority participation goals established by the City of Austin.

This remodeled residential compound resting on a bluff above Town Lake is part Tuscan, part Texas regional and part classic modern. The Main House was originally designed in the Tuscan style, and the traditional layout of small, interconnected rooms with small windows was altered to create open, flowing spaces to take advantage of the Texas light. A guest house situated part-way down the cliff face was replaced by a new, contemporary structure with a round, glass-enclosed dining/meeting room. Two smaller houses remodeled from garages for the teenagers and a pool cabana complete the compound.