< Previous“Win some and lose some, but if you get the opportunity, that is when you make your mark. Become a part of an exclusive list of go-to contractors by earning their trust, understanding their product, and company protocols. Do the homework, and learn about your client,” says Steven.Every client is different, and Target is a good example of that. It is a very particular company with a strong culture and strict protocol process. For example, Target is very particular with tracking systems for ordering, processing, and delivering parts. It is the only way for the company to manage everything in store at once. To be a right fit for Target means that contractors are scrutinized and evaluated based on stringent standards for competency, track record, as well as company financial status to sustain the kind of demands these jobs require.Starbucks also has a defined culture and wants things being done in a certain way. The differing expectations were an obstacle for Arsenal, but dealing with situations like this is a part of the company’s forte. “Companies like Starbucks spend a lot of money in developing protocols within a construction structure in order to facilitate expansion plans. This includes marketing and real estate. It has multiple vendors that require coordination to make it all happen,” says Steven.Arsenal’s growth is being managed carefully to ensure that quality of service and value to clients is not sacrificed. The structure of the company enables it to take on sizeable projects, anywhere from $50,000 and up to $10 million. “We reach out to corporations seeking contractors that take time to assess requirements, demands, vision, and marketing formats. We respect them and the methodologies they adhere to. At the end of the day, our clients want a general contractor that can work within their standards, and not around common market dictates,” says Steven.Arsenal does a great deal of work for blue chip 500 companies like Target, Loblaws, and Metro. It also operates in the retail sector, serving multiple brands. Developing new clients and relationships is always challenging due to the changing com-petitive landscape. “Not only do you have to beat the lowest price, but you also have to offer the unique services that each client expects. The bottom line does make a big difference, therefore making it harder to maintain a long-term relationship with a particular client,” says Steven.When dealing with companies such as Loblaws or Metro, Arsenal still goes through the tendering process, even though it has enjoyed a long-term relationship. On most projects, even though the owners have the right not to choose the lowest bidder, that is what will typically occur as a way of being consis-tent if every company has the appropriate qualifications. “Everything is well defined on drawings and codes, which are significant and guide the project. This is where we excel.”MARCH 201920Companies like Starbucks spend millions of dollars to structure a format that works on a nationwide scale to maintain order. A general contractor must be able to fit into that system.“With Starbucks we saw a completely different scenario, where their own architect controls the project. Everything is well defined on drawings and codes, which are significant and guide the project. This is where we excel,” says Steven.In Mississauga, there is a new, state-of-the-art, one-of-a-kind cardiac and radiation centre that was the brainchild of a group of doctors. It has become a one-stop-shop for all cardiac-relat-ed issues with the addition of radiation therapy. The centre was created from an existing building built in 2002. Arsenal had to demolish the interior and start from scratch. There were many difficulties in integrating the delicate design the architect wanted with the existing structure. “There were some mechanical and obstruction issues with the current struc-ture, and we had to come up with some innovative solutions to maintain the overall aesthetic that the architect desired. We pulled through and are very proud of the facility,” says Steven. Arsenal was happy to be a part of something that was bigger than itself. This is a huge endeavour for the community and the province. The average family doctor rents a space in a building, but that can be costly. To bring overhead costs down it would make more sense to have ten doctors in a facility with one central reception area. Arsenal is poised to promote itself as an organi-zation willing to undertake these projects. The hope for the future includes steady and controlled growth while maintaining the quality of services Arsenal offers. “If you want to be a principled business you need consistency, other-wise you can’t distinguish yourself above other contractors. It’s very important to be unique as it is a part of our identity. We can’t get lost in aggressive and uncontrolled growth, because that can weaken a company structure and identity,” says Steven. To keep this identity, the goal is to groom as many in-house people as possible to adopt and understand the company culture and construction ideals as the company embraces growth. “We had to come up with some innovative solutions to maintain the overall aesthetic that the architect desired. We pulled through and are very proud.”21CONSTRUCTION IN FOCUS Connecticut’s capital city of Hartford is known for many things, including being the home of the Mark Twain house, museums, and other historic and cultural institutions. Along with its rich history, it also boasts a public school system with 46 school, of which 20 are magnet schools – schools with specialized programs that draw in students from outside district boundaries. In fact, Hartford Public High School is the second oldest public high school in the U.S.Written by Samita SarkarSince 2012, Hartford Public Schools (HPS) has been planning major renovations of Thomas Snell Weaver High School, commonly referred to as Weaver High School, which was established in 1922. Though it was originally built to educate 2,000 students, it now serves about half that number. HPS received a $100 million-dollar grant shortly after announcing its renovation plans, which would allow Weaver High to better serve its student body, and that budget has since been raised to over $130 million.There is another element to the project that makes it even more exciting; the renovation will include the joining of Richard J. Kinsella Performing Arts High School (another magnet school) with the career-focused Thomas Snell Weaver High under one building. As website informs us, , legislation granting 95 percent reimbursement for the multimillion-dollar project required an existing magnet school to be incorporated. Kinsella Performing Arts, a magnet school that enrolls both suburban and urban students under the Sheff v. O’Neill desegregation pact, was selected in 2016. Hartford School District is a majority-minority district that has struggled with poverty despite being located near affluent, predominantly white suburbs, and HPS is working to address these inequities. The entire Weaver project is part of a much larger comprehensive, integrated plan to recon-figure the district. By 2022, HPS will have gone from 48 to 41 schools, from 43 to 31 facilities, and will release the operation of 12 facilities. This is all part of a strategic operating plan to provide nothing but the best in opportunities to all HPS students under the District Model for Excellence.“The District Model for Excellence is a comprehensive plan that was created by the Hartford community – parents, students, teachers, faith-based leaders, business, higher education, community organizations and government stakeholders – to create equitable access to great, high-quality schools for every child.”MARCH 201922 is a comprehensive plan that was created by the Hartford community – parents, students, teachers, faith-based leaders, business, higher education, community organizations and government stake-holders – to create equitable access to great, high-quality schools for every child. Dr. Leslie Torres-Rodriguez, Superintendent of Schools and a graduate of Hartford Schools, says that the joining of Weaver and Kinsella was a great opportunity.“However, that opportunity fits within the larger construct around our restructuring of our district. We conducted exten-sive community engagement to redesign and re-imagine our district. It’s what we call our District Model for Excellence. The Weaver High School project is mostly about safe and equitable access to great schools and pathways, which was a priority that emerged from our engagement with our community and stakeholders. The project allows us to do just that. All students have safe, convenient, equitable access to great schools and pathways. Weaver High School is going to be serving neigh-borhood students. This now allows many of our families in that community to have a clear pathway from pre-kindergarten, to middle school, to high school.”Dr. Torres-Rodriguez was featured in Working Mother2, dis-cussing the struggles of growing up around the poverty and violence of urban Hartford, and how she’s working to turn it around for the next generation. It is an issue can be tackled from many different angles. The District Model for Excellence has four priorities, which were identified by the community: teaching and learning (quality instruction to ensure students are college-ready); family and community partnerships; school culture and climate (all students should feel safe and valued); and operational effec-tiveness (maximizing the use of resources, initiatives, etc. while minimizing redundancies). 23CONSTRUCTION IN FOCUS There is both a social and a structural component to the project, which at times resulted in challenges (as with any major con-struction project of this size). At the moment, the construction team is scheduled to complete the academic portion of the newly renovated Weaver High School so it is open to students this fall 2019. The gymnasium and athletic component will be completed during 2020.Weaver’s Doc Hurley Field House, which holds the school gym-nasium, is currently undergoing a multimillion-dollar renova-tion. This process involved communication between the com-munity, engineers, and architects to reach an understanding, as originally some community members wanted some compo-nents in the athletic field house that architects did not have the square footage to accommodate. “All of the feedback was taken into consideration during the design phase,” recalls Dr. Torres-Rodriguez. “When we pro-cessed the estimating, the cost it would take to create a full-competition indoor track just wasn’t feasible for us, short of taking the field house down and starting from scratch. Knowing that it was cost prohibitive, we engaged in cooperation with the State of Connecticut, City of Hartford, and the design team, and we incorporated requests and expectations into what is currently the model now.”Another, albeit smaller, challenge was figuring out what material to use in the field: turf or grass. In the end, natural grass was considered, but synthetic turf was requested by the district for financial reasons and to make sure that it would be suitable for multi-sport competition at any time of year.“Natural turf is more difficult to maintain in the context of state pesticide regulations for schools and will also require an irri-gation system. The cost differential is approximately S350,000. With synthetic turf, students will be able to use the field year round. Multiple sports such as football, Soccer, lacrosse and field hockey can be played without having to rest the field,” the school states on its website.It can be challenging to keep a multi-year, multi-stakeholder, multimillion-dollar project running on schedule, as there can be a variety of factors that can impact timelines. The Weaver High School Construction timeline can be divided into five phases. • Phase I, the abatement and demolition of the academic building and auditorium, ran from October 2015 to February 2017. • Phase II was the construction of the reno-vated academic building and auditorium, from September 2017 to this August of 2019. • Phase III, the abatement and demolition of the field house, started just a few months ago in September 2018, and will be finished this March. • Phase IV, its construction, will be com-pleted in January 2020. • Phase V is to install furniture, fixtures and equip-ment (FF&E), and technology, which will happen this summer (June 2019–August 2019). “The biggest challenge to keeping on schedule was actually the amount of rain we received last year. We held weekly meetings – and still do – between the project manager and the construc-tion company. Information is brought to the Hartford School Building Committee, and continual dialog and adjustments are made to ensure that we remain on task and schedule,” says Dr. Torres-Rodriguez. “Other schools are closing, consolidat-ing, and are being restructured. We are being very mindful in making sure that we do anything and everything that we can to maintain the integrity of the timeline.”MARCH 201924The Weaver Steering Committee, instrumental in helping all stakeholders work through unforeseen challenges, was created to foster transparency and provide updates throughout the process for the community, and has guided the process of designing the high school. It is a large committee of city offi-cials, parents, teachers, architects, community partners, and even former Weaver graduates.Hartford Public Schools has also worked with many impor-tant stakeholders on the design team to make this project a reality, including: its representative, Arcadis/O&G Program Management; construction managers Newfield+Downes Joint Venture; architect of record and landscape architect The S/L/A/M Collaborative; associate architect Amenta Emma Architects PC; transportation engineers Milone and MacBroom; coustical design Cavanaugh Tocci Associates; FF&E Mathieu Hopkins Associates; commissioning agent Colliers International; structural engineer Macchi Engineers, MEP engineer Consulting Engineering Services, fire protection engineering Aztech Engineers, civil and geotechnical engineer Freeman Companies; environmental engineer Eagle Environmental; communications, security and technology Guillen Technology Consultants, and government officials. These include the City of Hartford building inspector, fire marshal, and health depart-ment, and the Connecticut Department of Public Health.1www.hartfordschools.org/districtmodel2www.workingmother.com/how-leslie-torres-rodriguez-followed-her-dream-becoming-an-educatorAs we reflect on the long but meaningful journey that Hartford Public Schools is embarking on with Weaver-Kinsella specifi-cally, but also the District Model for Excellence as a whole, the project is in alignment with what the Hartford community was searching for:• Clear, K–12 pathways that prepare students for college and career• Improvement in the quality of educational facilities• Greater access to resources, including thought-provoking programming and extracurriculars in what the commu-nity calls an “equity move” • Opportunities for partnership between neighborhood schools and magnet schoolsIt’s an exciting time for Weaver-Kinsella high school students, who are preparing to transition to the new facility later this year. Some of them will be attending high school for the first time. The school is still going through its enrollment process. Right now, Dr. Torres-Rodriguez is looking into providing summer program opportunities to help students during this time of transition.“When we thought about transitioning our rising ninth graders, we decided it was important to engage our community partners in helping us provide high school ‘bridge’ programs in the summer. There is a lot of excitement for us to support our students and our families throughout the transition,” says Dr. Torres-Rodriguez.Under the leadership of Superintendent Dr. Torres-Rodriguez, and with support from the Hartford Board of Education, the Weaver Steering Committee and other partners, these students will now be able to receive the excellent education they deserve. “It’s an exciting time for Weaver-Kinsella high school students, who are preparing to transition to the new facility later this year.”25MARCH 201926Langston Construction Company of Piedmont, South Carolina, is celebrating fifty years as a general contractor serving industrial, environmental, and commercial clients. In the past year, the firm – licensed in the Carolinas, Georgia, Tennessee, Virginia, and Florida – has undergone a seamless transition to new ownership through careful planning. Written by Margaret Patricia EatonA fiftieth anniversary is not always a cause for celebra-tion. For companies where succession plans have not been put in place, it is really more a time of crisis when founders retire, leaving a new generation of owners to figure it out for themselves. This was not the case with Langston Construction Company, according to Langston Construction Company Co-owner Evan Sowell. The company was founded by Julian Langston in 1969, and focused primarily on wastewater treatment facilities at the time. “Approximately twenty years after founding the company,” Sowell says, “Julian brought in James Braswell as a partner. He’d come from more of an industrial and utilities background, so that changed the focus, and then when Julian retired in 1998, James acquired the business, having been a partner for nine years.”According to Sowell, a successful business transition needs an eight-to-ten-year succession plan, which is what Braswell began in 2005, when current Co-owner Jim Roberts, armed with a master’s degree in construction science management from Clemson University, arrived to work as a superintendent. Sowell joined in 2006 as assistant project manager and had worked there through an internship while attending Presbyterian College, where he’d earned a degree in business administration. “Jim and I worked on projects together as I 27CONSTRUCTION IN FOCUS Jim RobertsPrincipalEvan SowellPrincipalmoved into project management, and I think James facilitated that on purpose because he saw potential in both of us, and he paired us to see how we’d work together and what our strengths and weaknesses were,” he recalls.“We like to keep things energetic, upbeat, and positive, and younger people bring that.”The two men did indeed work well together. Roberts moved into the office and got more experience on the project man-agement and accounting side, “so there was a succession plan early on for us to take over because James had started thinking about retirement early. He knew the transition would take time, because we work with a surety company, insurance agents, contracts, reviews, lawyers, bankers, clients, and each of these relationships take time to develop. Over time, after becoming minority stockholders in 2009, we received more responsibilities as executive officers. James recognized when we were ready and in a position where it made sense for us financially, so we were able to complete the transition this past June,” says Sowell.MARCH 201928 “It was really well-planned and thought out, and I don’t think there’s been a hiccup. Neither has there been a culture shock to any of our employees, as they knew this was coming for quite some time. Eight years ago, we began making hiring decisions, so there is loyalty, and employees understand the structure of the organization.”This does not mean, however, that Braswell is sitting at his desk in a rocking chair. Far from it. Now, as a strategic advisor, he maintains an office at Langston. “He’s been in the business for forty years, and having him here has been a valuable asset to Jim and me,” says Sowell. “He’s a mentor and someone to bounce ideas off. He’s seen a lot and been through a lot. He still comes in a couple of days a week; he’s involved in strategy meetings and long-term planning, and he can share experienc-es that we haven’t had a chance to have, because we’re only in our mid-thirties, and we have a long road ahead,” he shares.“We’ve been complimented by our accountants for our tax reviews and tax planning, by our bonding and insurance agents, our corporate attorneys – by all of the support entities that a company has to deal with. They’ve been really compli-mentary with how we’ve had our succession plan structured and how well it has gone forward. I think James could offer a blueprint to folks for how to do this successfully.” Although their retirements are a long way off, Sowell and Roberts recognize the importance of starting their own succes-sion plan and are bringing in young people and maintaining a good mix of ages. “We have older folks who’ve been with us for 29CONSTRUCTION IN FOCUS Next >