We recently used Reflectit, a relatively new product brought to the market by Dryvit, on an interesting urban project. Station 22, a Birmingham fire station circa 1930, sat empty for years. Our customer and our team both thought that if the station could be saved, it could provide an interesting link between the current Lakeview entertainment …
Yesterday evening, I had dinner at the Federal Reserve where Lake Forest College economics Professor Robert Baade gave a presentation on the economic impact of sports venues. Dr. Baade is recognized as an expert, consulting nationally and internationally with countries including South Africa and Brazil. I left with a few interesting takeaways: The social value of stand-alone sports subsidies does …
iPads have invaded our office. And our job sites. And our work trucks. We obtained them mainly to run PlanGrid, another tool for our PMs and our project superintendents on the job sites. PlanGrid is a cloud-based system. Our guys create a project, then upload plans, specs, reports and schedules. Their mobile app syncs with online …
Recently, we’ve been working on new construction for Sprouts Farmer’s Market, a specialty grocery concentrated on healthy living. Their management team places a focus on lowering carbon footprint, and we’ve been a part of those efforts in regards to refrigeration. The old standard HFC refrigerant has a number of environmental concerns and regulatory pressures have added economic …
I just returned from the ICSC ReCON conference in Las Vegas, which some refer to as “the Super Bowl of real estate.” About 40,000 from the industry attended, and I found a sense of resilience and optimism. Now more than ever, bricks and mortar businesses are competing with pure Internet sales to create the ultimate …
RFID (radio-frequency identification devices) have been around for about 10 years. These microchips with antennas transmit data wirelessly and are about the size of the head of a match, up to the size of a business card. They were initially used for pallet and case control at the distribution level, but we’re seeing them do so …
In the cycles we live in, nothing is ever in balance. Five years ago, there was plenty of labor available, but a minimum of projects. Now we’re seeing an ever increasing list of opportunities out there. I see the shortage of skilled labor increasing, along with skilled subcontractors, architects and building contractors. A substantial amount …
For us, monitoring and documenting jobsite progress is important for a number of reasons. Being able to see a job’s development is a value-add for the customer, giving them peace of mind when it’s not easy to visit the site. Our project managers have an easier time overseeing jobs in a wide geographic area when …
We recently started work on the renovation of a 100-year-old structure in the city as the Construction Manager for The Lyric Theatre, a project which has proved interesting for many reasons. One is the history lesson we are getting about construction practices in 1913. The foundations, rebar and structural steel have proven particularly interesting. We …
Most years, things slow down around Christmas. Many people take time off to be with family, and the last two weeks of December are usually touch and go. Except this year. Five days before Christmas, we still have phones ringing, email notifications chiming and bids churning. From our boots on the ground perspective, it seems …
Each quarter, I meet with a handful of real estate and construction executives to discuss what we’re seeing and the broader implications for the region. Our gathering this week included a visit with a DOT Director, John Cooper. A state’s DOT decisions are often the lynchpins in a development, so the trends are definitely worth …
We built our first segmental wall in Charlottesville, Virginia about 20 years ago. I was recently passing through there and saw that the wall is still standing, just as we built it in the early 90s. At the time, the locals called it “the Great Wall of Charlottesville.” It was pretty tall for that time–32 …