Improvements – part 1

“The strength of a community is in the character of its people, not the size of its buildings.” _{Calvin Coolidge}

From 2006 to 2009 I oversaw the design and construction of Celtic Studios in Baton Rouge. It is a 29 acre, $56M facility containing offices, post-production facilities, support services, and some of the largest sound stages in the world.

In my capacity as Project Manager, I recruited, hired, and oversaw dozens of design and build professionals, including some wonderfully talented architects, engineers (civil, mechanical, electrical, structural, acoustic) and contractors. My electrical engineer, Kent Gasperecz, of AST Engineering, stands out in my memory for his good taste (Kent suggested Louis Poulsen’s HW Patina lamp posts for the site lighting), his devotion to quality and safety, and his patience and ability to put up with me.

We coordinated with the local utility (Entergy) to install primary metering for the facility. This setup allowed us to receive high-voltage power directly, with metering on the primary side, giving us control over the selection of every switch and transformer. Because a film studio’s productions demand clean, reliable power, Kent spec’d equipment that was to a higher standard than that of the city. Pictured below are a switch and two transformers, one 750 KVA and one 1000 KVA.

In addition to our own electrical distribution system, we built a chilled water system with hundreds of tons of coolers for multiple buildings. I coordinated subsurface drainage with the city…

…and fire protection with the fire department (we installed our own hydrants).

Two local kids had just started a special effects company, and they were kind enough to help me out. I hired them to cut stencils and paint the names and numbers on our first buildings.

I’m very happy to see that their company is still going strong, and that they got out of the movie studio lettering business.

Looking back on this project, building a movie studio is like having the world’s largest train set, and I’m very proud of what we built in Baton Rouge. I also just wanted to show that I know more than a little about infrastructure, or as they used to call it, improvements.