Early planning stage -- questions

Hello all, I've been lurking around here for a couple of years as a guest, on and off. It's amazing how much information and help is available here. This is my first post on the forum; I'm trying to follow knightfly's rules to the letter. Who and where am I: I'm a professor of music at Central Missouri State University, in Warrensburg, Missouri, USA. Warrensburg is about 45 miles from Kansas City, in rural Missouri. At CMSU, I'm in charge of the music technology degree program, which is focused on audio engineering and music production. The program has been operating since 2000. Overview of goals: My goal is to build a new recording studio complex and teaching facility. This facility should include 2 recording studios, at least one of which will be able to handle 5.1 projects. In at least one of the studios, there must be a tracking room large enough to hold a jazz big band (15 horn players, piano, drums, guitar, bass). Each of the studios should include multiple recording spaces (e.g. drum booth, vocal booth) as well as a larger tracking room. Each of the control rooms should offer enough room for a teacher and 15 students to interact for class. It would be great if one of the studios allowed for 20 students. There should be one office in the facility, as well as men's/women's restrooms and at least one oversize door to facilitate load-in/load-out. I have not begun the sketching process as of yet, but as of now, I'm thinking of a facility around 3,000 square feet total. Height is not an issue (see below), so it might be 2 stories in height to increase cubic footage (open space, not 2 floors). Where we are in the design process: Just barely begun. Basically, we currently have two recording studios, with around $250,000 of equipment. I'm pretty happy with our equipment at the moment, but the space it's in is terrible. These studios are located in temporary spaces in a converted dormitory, with a minimum of treatment or special construction. As you can imagine, the sound is less than I would desire in a variety of ways (transmission to/from other spaces and vice versa -- there's a clarinet teacher across the hall -- acoustics of the tracking and control rooms, etc. ad nauseam). We want to get out of those spaces entirely and build a new building. That seems much more practical than trying to alter the spaces where we are -- they're not large enough in any dimension and if we move out, other music people who really need the space could move in. We are currently trying to put together the information we need to pursue funding for this project. Our proposals will be much more effective if I can flesh out the design with more detail. Ideally, I'll eventually take the design all the way to the point where it's ready to give to the university architect. HOW LOUD are you, and how picky/loud are your neighbors? We will generate typical rock studio levels in the tracking rooms. Our nearest neighbors to the space where we plan to build are in two college dormitories. One of those is across the street, the other is next door; there will be green space between us (how much depends on how large the facility gets). We typically have students in our studios 24/7, so transmission to the outside should be minimized. Include as much detail as possible about the existing construction. This is an easy one. There is no existing construction. We plan to build on an open plot of land between our current building and the dormitory up the street. This plot opened up when a previously existing building was demolished. The available space, based on the plans for that building, is at least 200' x 50'. The buildings to either side go up 3-4 stories, so we could easily go up 2 stories if justified. My budget: Well, that's the question. For the moment, we have none. That's why we're busy writing proposals. I'm hoping that we will be able to build something along these lines for $300,000 or less. My actual questions (at the moment -- more will come, I'm sure): 1. Would it be better in terms of cost, but also effectiveness, to think in terms of masonry construction or frame construction? From what I can glean from the Reference area and multiple searches on this site and elsewhere, it seems like either can work well. I think masonry may have the edge in cost-effectiveness for new construction in this part of the country, but I'm curious about whether or not that's right. 2. Does it seem like 3,000 square feet is enough to meet the design goals above? Could it be done in less square footage? 3. What is a ballpark figure for cost-per-square foot for new construction (masonry vs. frame if you know) in this part of the USA, given that we already own the land? I found a couple of threads mentioning cost-per-square foot in my search of this forum, but none that I saw were located where I am. Any thoughts there? Thanks in advance for any help any of you can provide. Best regards, Eric Honour

Welcome, erichonour! Will students be recruited to do the labor? Because I don't know that you can can build a 3,000 foot facility from the ground up (not including land of course) for $300,000. My insurance agent told me last year that my 2,000 square foot house would cost that much to rebuild in the event of a catastrophic fire or flood, and that's just "normal" costs (not super-inflated regional catastrophy price-gouging rates). I would think that a commercial-grade facility with the isolation levels you'd need would be much higher. Of course I'm not even close to be an expert on building costs... I'm also in California, where construction costs are quite high right now. Just thought I'd share that bit of insight, in case it's worth anything. Nice introductory post. I really do hope this gets off the ground because I'd love to see it chronicled here. 8) --Keith :mrgreen:

sharward wrote:

Will students be recruited to do the labor?

:) Heck, it's educational, right? They ought to pay us for the privilege. :P Just kidding, of course.

Because I don't know that you can can build a 3,000 foot facility from the ground up (not including land of course) for $300,000. (snip) I would think that a commercial-grade facility with the isolation levels you'd need would be much higher. I'm also in California... (snip)

Yeah, I really don't have a feel for the budget. The research I've done so far puts the number all over the map, from $80-$250 per square foot, which translates to $240,000-750,000 to build this thing. That's quite a range. My working ballpark is based on a hard number I saw that average cost to build office space in St. Louis is less than $95/sq ft. I would expect our costs to be a bit lower than St. Louis, but of course I expect the construction will cost a bit more than typical office construction. I just don't know how much more. At one point a few years back, we were given a number of $200/sq ft from a consultant, but I got the impression that included purchasing equipment as well. Thanks for the reply, EH

My working ballpark is based on a hard number I saw that average cost to build office space in St. Louis is less than $95/sq ft.

Double it for studio construction. Andre

Yeah, that sounds more like it. :roll:

Hi Eric - welcome to the forum - pricing can be quite variable - the lower reckoning is for an internal construction whereas the higher usually include the outer building, as in your case. In residential construction a great deal of the cost is in two major areas - the kitchen and bathrooms because of the cabinet work, plumbing, waterproofing and tiling etc. Studios tend to balance this out because of the additional layers, increased insulation etc. Having taught music production and been responsible for the design of the teaching facilities myself in a classroom/lecture situation I've recently pondered a control room layout that includes a rear tiered seating arrangement where a group of students can all be seated close to the speaker center line so when you are discussing stereo spread/panning etc they can all hear it correctly. I'm not sure about your University's student access but we ended up giving 24hr access to the facilities so isolation from residential areas became additionally important. BTW - as you are into didgeridoo check this track out. http://johnlsayers.com/mp3/Yidaki_Overture.mp3 William Barton is one of aussielands best players and I caught this performance recently. cheers john

Hey John, thanks for the didgeridoo link and thoughts on the studio. Barton is pretty freakin' amazing, based on that track! I've been continuing to work on the design; I've come up with the following, as a work in progress. I suspect that we'll end up going with an established design firm as time goes by -- that's the way universities are -- but this at least gives all of us a point of reference. BTW, I found the "norm3" design you posted on the SketchUp forums and pilfered parts of it. Hope you don't mind too much. :) Hmmm.... I'm new to SketchUp in the last 3 days. I haven't yet figured out how to make files smaller. My current design is nearly 3MB! I posted a PDF of a top view, but that's not the same as the .skp file. If you're interested, you can see it at: http://www.erichonour.com/CurrentBuildingDesign.skp Any thoughts or suggestions are welcome, of course. EH EDIT: Purged unused in the SketchUp file -- it's now down to 1.2MB.

Not that I'm a professional stoodio designer or anything :? ... but... the storage area that connects to Vocal Booth studio B... Would it not be wise to have access to this room from the main hallway (maybe need to rearrange toilets). In your current design you have to walk through the main tracking room and then the booth to get to this. I see that potentially this could cause disruption to recording sessions.. Only a thought though.. please ignore me if you want :D Looks like a great project, I wish I had that amount of space and budget to use on my stoodio.

diziet wrote:

Not that I'm a professional stoodio designer or anything :? ... but... the storage area that connects to Vocal Booth studio B... Would it not be wise to have access to this room from the main hallway (maybe need to rearrange toilets). In your current design you have to walk through the main tracking room and then the booth to get to this. I see that potentially this could cause disruption to recording sessions.. Only a thought though.. please ignore me if you want :D Looks like a great project, I wish I had that amount of space and budget to use on my stoodio.

Thanks for the input diziet. Interestingly, that's almost the first thing my wife said when I showed her the picture! You're right, it's a problem at the moment. I'm going to revisit it as I get some time throughout the rest of the summer. I think the control room for Studio B could be smaller (the classes taught there have fewer students), and I might not need quite so much space behind the rear speakers. If I could cut that down and make some adjustments to the restrooms, I think I could get a door to the storage area next to the restrooms.