2011 was a great year to be an eldo. We were busier than ever before–designing buildings, fabricating installations, teaching students at KU and K-State and utilizing a three-man water balloon launcher to enhance a Peter Gabriel billboard across the street. We expanded our staff to sixteen full-timers, with another coming on board next week. In the midst of all this activity we found time to significantly increase the capacity of our eldo-led Design-Build operation.
Although steel fabrication has comprised about 25% of our business since 1996, we didn’t fine tune our full service Design-Build operation until 2009. We’ve completed six projects to date, with two more stellar projects well underway.
Drive southwest down Southwest Boulevard, cross under the mass of train tracks and look to your left. You’ll see one of our current Design-Build projects, the Boulevard Brewery Cellar 1 Expansion, rising up from its brick and concrete base, eight shining tanks supported by a trapezoid of steel. Before long the structure will be clad in glass and perforated metal panels, and the tanks will be filled with some of the sweetest golden nectar available in these United States.
In the heart of the Crossroads, another Design-Build project is moving quickly. We’ve started framing the interior walls and a two-story rear addition at the offices of Mission Peak Capital. The financial firm is located in the old headquarters of “Boss Tom” Pendergast, the Depression-era figure whose political influence and corruption are the stuff of legend. Pendergast handpicked eventual president Harry S. Truman for Senate candidacy, ignored Prohibition, oversaw shootouts and beatings on election days, and was rumored to have buried bodies in the concrete beneath Brush Creek.
Our Design-Build efforts include restoring the historic façade and retaining Pendergast’s original office layout while designing an efficient, modern workspace for the Mission Peak employees. We haven’t unearthed anything suspicious under the concrete slab at Mission Peak except a 1930s milk of magnesia bottle and some ancient Eveready batteries.
More eldo-led Design-Build projects are in store for 2012. We were just selected by the Shawnee Mission Unitarian Universalist Church to turn a mid century Lenexa school facility into their new home.
We’re excited about the way Design-Build has allowed us to integrate design with our construction expertise. Serving as on-site construction managers, we can apply our knowledge of craft and the construction process directly to the project, as it is being built. We can solve problems efficiently on site and make better decisions early in the design process. Good for our clients and good for us.
And we’re beginning to think that we look good in hard-hats.
Posted on January 16th, 2012 at 5:02 pm by eldo