Tag Archives: General Contracting

Lights, Camera, Action! Kitchell Relocates KPNX to Republic Media Building

When local NBC affiliate KPNX/Channel 12 went live for the first time Wednesday, Jan. 12 from its ground floor studio in the Arizona Republic building in downtown Phoenix, Kitchell was front and center shouting its congratulations. The day marked the culmination of Kitchell’s fast-track six-month long construction project to move the entire television station from the original Central Avenue location to its new “200 EVB” home.

“This is a significant event in the Valley’s changing media landscape and it’s great that we could be a part of it,” said Mike Rock, president of Kitchell Contractors. “Even better – we now get to see our handiwork on television every day.”

Kitchell oversaw the demolition, relocation and 14,500-square-foot remodel of the news station which is slightly more than 1.5 miles from its previous home. The focal point of the new studio is a picture window, a la the Today Show’s Rockefeller Center Window on the World, facing Van Buren and Third Street. Visitors will be able to get a real time peek into the front-of-camera and behind-the-scenes activities at KPNX, one of the top performing NBC affiliates with 1.1 million viewers weekly.

Project challenges included remaining highly sensitive to ongoing activities at the Arizona Republic, which relies on a sophisticated electronics infrastructure for its news operations.

Key to success – Cardon Children’s Medical Center

Viewpoint By Jim Pullen, Project Director

The key to Kitchell’s success in building the Cardon Children’s Medical Center was our ability to coordinate the efforts of many people and then effectively communicate them.  Although Kitchell has a history of working on large, complex projects, this was the first one where every department in the hospital was directly affected by our work

Creating a formal process

Because of the project’s scope, we quickly realized the importance of creating a formal process to achieve our number one priority: keeping the existing facility up and running during construction. 

 The process included creating forms, a spreadsheet with key item numbers, a list of affected departments, a reason for our actions, details and floor plans of areas in which we were working. We also included a backup plan for each item and space to record key lessons learned.  We called it the impact matrix, and developed the process on site.

 Preplanning and communication

Thanks to this matrix, hospital stakeholders weren’t surprised when we shut down power, or blocked parking spaces or when road access changed. We preplanned with the affected departments and communicated information up to the point of execution.  We sent weekly notes to the public relations contact to include in the hospital newsletter and post in public areas.  And we contacted doctors in advance with information that would affect them.

The impact matrix was an effective tool that we have added to our toolbox. Feedback from our clients indicates that they like it as much as we do.