Free to build at last! This Monday morning I met with my contractor, landlord’s project manager and the landlord’s building engineer to discuss final transition of the space from their team over to me. With a few tasks remaining on their end (new air conditioning vent and minor details such as an entrance to my space) they reluctantly agreed to allow my contractor to begin work. The meeting also revealed a couple of interesting details that put their construction in a slightly new light.
1. Spire’s building engineer, the chief project manager for all construction, suffered a serious family emergency just as construction begin on my space, leaving an inexperienced administrative assistant and a new contractor to deal with this project.
2. As a result, miscommunication ensued and mismanagement run rampant. Recall my discussion of Spire telling me they had gotten “their own plans drawn” that didn’t have anything to do with my permits? Throughout the first few months I tried consistently to notify Spire that the approved drawings were not posted on site, that I had the permitted plans and wouldn’t they like them? As it turns out, the “plans they had done on their own” turned out to be nothing but the floor-plan my architect had included in the lease. Their work was done entirely off an 8 1/2 x 11″ sheet of paper while my detailed HVAC, MEP and architectural drawings sat in an office untouched. Their administrative assistant said that she was unaware that the plans I’d had prepared encompassed their work in addition to mine. “It’s in the lease,” I pointed out. “I’m sorry if I’d assumed you had read it.” She attributed this gross error to a “simple misunderstanding.” I coughed.

All the shock of this revelation aside, my contractor, the ever so awesome Omega Construction (and you can fan them on Facebook too), hit the ground running the very next day. They demolished all of the necessary walls, tore out some frames, and negotiated moving a surprise gas line all in a day’s work. Despite my usual penchant for sarcasm, I say entirely without it that this team has accomplished in less than a week, more than what Spire’s team achieved in an entire month. As a result, my landlord’s building engineer has seen the light and will likely hire my team to do their remaining work as well.

It’s only a few days into our construction and we’ve hit more than a few snafus. The first big surprise came the first morning when we discovered a mysterious gas line whose existence in a wall set for demolition had never been indicated. Naturally, this just happened to be the main gas line for both of our main cooking lines! In compliance with code for handling major gas lines (we’re back to sarcasm now) the previous owner’s contractor had failed to properly support the line and had simply left it propped up by some boards. Wow.

To further entertain us, we also discovered that the refrigeration units in the existing buffet line are not only hammered together in one giant 15+ ft long piece, but have also been screwed into, glued upon and generally banged up in every possible way.

Our intentions to reuse these units as under-counter refrigerators in our kitchens will likely have to be scrapped. Even more fun, the units are so massive they will have to be disassembled just to fit through the door, rendering any attempt to sell the units virtually hopeless.Still, the excitement of finally having my crew in the door and entering the final weeks of construction overpower any frustration. Walls are coming down, walls are going up… and we are happy.
We will continue to post pictures as construction continues both here and on our Facebook Page.

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