Last week, I drove through Birmingham’s Avondale neighborhood on 39th Street, a route I’ve traveled many times before. I always knew it as straight as an arrow, but not any longer. I later discovered that residents had asked the city to slow down traffic, and engineers responded with “chicanes.” These landscaped islands form a hopscotch pattern …
We have a project that involves two engineering consultants of the same discipline. One of the engineering firms has an overlay for the larger project, but it was appropriate for us to hire another engineer for our portion. At the start, it seemed it would be a rocky road. I suspect this was because the engineer …
Several of our more recent projects have been driven by consumer desire for socially connectivity, an idea traditionally limited to large cities. While the suburbs are not going away anytime soon, we’re seeing increased emphasis on places that create an experience and a sense of place. This means finding everything you need for daily living …
Sometimes it’s easy to fall into the trap of not staying connected when a particular service is completed or comes to an end. Over the years, I have found it pays to stay friends with customer relationships, whether they are high or low in the cycle. To stay invested. I was reminded of this recently …
“Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.” –Theodore Roosevelt Happy Independence Day.
While all of our projects are special, a handful standout for one reason or another. The Thomas Jefferson, a 20-story structure completed circa 1929, was once considered among the finest Southern hotels. After closing about 3 decades ago, this beautiful Florentine building sat empty. Through the efforts of many, we are now repurposing the space …
We have been restoring The Lyric Theatre for about 9 months now, with a completion date scheduled at year’s end. To create a state of the art rigging system at the stage fly, we recently installed micropiles. They carry the load of four 65’ columns that are supporting about 25 tons of load individually. Our drilling ranged …
About 6 months ago, the president of a local public university made the decision to end the UAB Football team. The result was an unprecedented rally of support for the school, and the #freeuab movement. You can’t drive down a local highway without seeing multiple bumper stickers supporting the UAB campaign. Truth is, some sports …
This week, I did something every contractor doesn’t like: I turned down two nice soon-to-start projects. It was painful for me, but the right thing to do. Because of circumstances during the past week, I determined we did not have proper management in place to do a good job for our customer and called the …
I could have titled this post something like “Remember the Right Steps” just as well. I didn’t do this recently, and it could have cost us. We have a small project of about 3000 sf, a new building on a site where a structure had been for years. I said to myself, “If a building …
This past week, I attended ICSC ReCon in Las Vegas, where I always enjoy visiting with longtime friends and meeting new ones. I had the pleasure of being introduced to Clark Johnson of Johnson Light Studio and EVOKE on the last day of the conference. He and his team have designed lighting for an impressive …
I’m going to a national convention next week with 30,000 of my closest friends. While preparing, I started thinking about whether I’m selling upstream or working downstream. Whether at a convention or in regular conversation, these are a few things I’ve learned over the years: Make Eye Contact. There is no substitute for this gold standard. Sincerity …