Speaker 1 (00:00):
<silence> So, you have a commercial renovation, and you’re trying to decide if you can stay in the space during construction. We have a special guest, Philip Kern from Kern Architects. He’s gonna help us decide whether or not that’s a good idea. You found the K-Cup. Let’s jump in.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
So, welcome back to the K-Cup episode 25. This is a special episode for us. We actually are gonna have our first interview today. We have a special guest, uh, Philip Kern here from Kern Architects. And, uh, we’re gonna introduce him in a second to y’all. But today we’re talking about renovating an occupied space. It’s something that is of great concern to, to any contractor and architects as well. We know that there’s, uh, uh, definitely some challenges associated with, with, uh, this kind of a project, and we’re posing that question, should you stay or should you go <laugh>? And so we’re gonna try to answer that question today by, uh, covering these three key points. You know, a lot of, uh, clients assume, um, at the outset of thinking about a renovation, that yeah, they could probably just stay in the space and then be easy, and they’re just gonna go, you know, tuck themselves in one corner. This is a great episode for General Contractors Baton Rouge.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Why, you know, the contractor does his job or whatever, but we know that in the real world, that’s not what happens. And, and, uh, so we’re gonna talk about three key areas today, and, uh, these key areas are going to, um, you know, help us assess whether or not, uh, really someone should stay in, in a renovated space. We’re gonna talk about the impact of operations, talk about safety and liability, and talk about the actual cost, you know, the financial cost of, of trying to pull this off. So, let’s go ahead and get started. John, uh, glad you’re here today, man. Are you excited about this episode being, being our first interview? Oh,
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Yeah. Super excited. Glad to have Philip. Good friend, and Philip fellow professional. <laugh>. Glad to have you today, Philip. Yeah, I want, uh, don’t you take a minute and introduce yourself. to all the General Contractors Baton Rouge.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
Yeah, appreciate the invite. I didn’t, I don’t know, I didn’t realize when y’all invited me. I was gonna be the first guest, so I guess it’s all uphill from here. <laugh>, uh, Philip Kern with current architects. I started current architects about six years ago now. Uh, spent a lot of time in the design build world prior to that. So kind of a, a different perspective and, and really appreciate the value of teaming with contractors. So we’ve had a couple opportunities to team with Kelly Construction, and, you know, always looking for, for more opportunities for that. But I think the teaming perspective brings a lot, uh, on, on this subject, particularly of occupied renovations, where there’s a lot of factors that we’ll get into today. Uh, that, that I think I, I wanted to have this conversation. I kind of reached out and said, I’ve been listening to y’all’s episodes lately, and I, I’ve got one that’s been a little bit of a pain point lately. Is there any chance maybe I was kind of hinting that y’all should have the conversation and make sure you include General Contractors Baton Rouge.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
And you say, yeah, come on. So, so here I, yeah, that’s right. We wanna give credit where credit’s due. You actually were the inspiration for this conversation, so it’s appropriate that you’re here <laugh>.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Yeah, we, only way we can get him on is I bring up his own show, but yeah,
Speaker 2 (03:15):
That’s all right. We, we’ll make sure we get that right in the, in the show notes as they say. So, let’s dive in, guys. Let’s go into this, uh, you know, this first key element and talking about the impact to operations for a business where, you know, they’re occupying a space that they want to renovate, and, you know, how the construction process might, you know, affect, you know, their ability to function, the ability to operate, and just the functionality of their space that they’re, you know, currently working in prior to this construction process. Uh, in this first part, you know, we, we have several things that we want to touch on about, you know, the, the potential loss of productivity, uh, potential impact to their revenue, ability to make revenue, uh, for the business. And then of course, you know, the schedule <laugh>, we know that in construction schedule’s, everything, and we always start a project off with a nice, neat schedule. And, and of course, as a project unfolds, the schedule is one of the things that seems to, is, you know, set for the brunt of unexpected reality. So we’re gonna talk about how that can be affected too, by someone staying in the space while we’re renovating. So get us, get us started there, John, start this conversation on, uh, should they stay or should they go? Yeah, so pay attention General Contractors Baton Rouge, this may be valuable to your operations.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
No, just, just thinking about, you know, loss of productivity. Uh, the first thing that comes to my mind and something that we run across quite frequent is, uh, you know, noise, uh, dust fumes. Those are all things that usually come up early in conversation, and it’s, and it’s something that, you know, everybody thinks that they can deal with. Uh, you know, yeah. Noise is not gonna be a problem. We’re gonna be able to work in this space. We’re gonna be able to, to handle it. Yeah. Uh, or, you know, fumes or dust, not gonna be that big a deal. Dust not so much. I mean, usually there has to be some kind of, you know, mitigation for dust, but fumes specifically. Now we can handle that. But then once construction actually starts, and that noise really begins, you know, the sound of impact or the sounds of salt or whatever, uh, becomes a real problem.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
Absolutely. Um, and I think that, you know, everybody starts off kind of optimistic and, and then once it actually starts, uh, you know, there’s an issue. And, and then that in turn leads to loss of production for, you know, one or the other, either the contractor or the end user, because at this point they’re looking at us to work, you know, after hours or, you know, evenings. Yeah. Um, and then the alternative that is, is they’re, they’re having to change their work schedule. Uh, so, so both parties are already, you know, kind of working outside of the plan, if you will, and, uh, just losing the product to tend be one way or the other. Uh, so Phillip, is that something you guys see from time to time? Or how do y’all approach that in in these instances? and include General Contractors Baton Rouge in the conversation?
Speaker 3 (06:01):
Yeah, I mean, not always, but oftentimes the architect’s gonna be the one having these conversations early. And, and a lot of times, if, if we’re, if we’re not being real frank, you know, the conversations aren’t that challenging and they probably should be more challenging. Yeah. Uh, you know, I think what I see a lot is the architect is usually designing the project closely with either the C-suite or a facility manager, not necessarily the, the end user who’s actually occupying the space. It’s, it’s usually not, in my experience. So, you know, these conversations when you’re, when you’re speaking with the folks who have kind of the high level view, they’re not down in the trenches in the day to day of what it’s like working in that space. There’s a lot of things that, that they’re not thinking about. So I think it, it, it needs to, the architect needs to make an effort to really get clear about what the concerns are, but then encourage that C-level team member or the facility manager to say, look, let’s take this conversation down to that facility.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
Yeah, let’s actually, uh, put some tape on the floor or put a piece of visqueen where we’re gonna put that temporary wall, and, and let’s talk to that, that team, the folks who actually operate in that space to see what’s this gonna do? What’s this gonna do to you guys? Are y’all gonna be able to function with this smaller, more consolidated space with, with this exit out over here instead of your typical entry point? So that, that’s what I see is that, uh, making sure the right people are involved in that conversation early, that are actually gonna impact the way that space is gonna be used while you’re operating on the construction side.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
That seems huge, that, you know, uh, it seems like a, a necessary conversation that you’d want to have on the front end, is not just, you know, passing a note on to, you know, upper management that, hey, these things are gonna be interrupted, or this, this space is gonna be compromised in this way. But actually having that conversation, like you said, with their team, and making sure that they’re aware of the realities of what, you know, the situation’s gonna be. John, you’d mentioned productivity, and there’s, you know, we had this note in our outline for this, for this discussion about how from a business standpoint, the, the business that’s occupying that space typically will lose between 20 and 40% of their productivity by staying in the space that’s being renovated. That’s pretty significant to, you know, the bottom line, I would think, particularly depending on how long a duration this pro, you know, the project is. So, uh, how about from the constructor or the construction side, or the contractor’s, uh, side as far as productivity? I know that you feel like there’s something there too, right?
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Yeah, so I mean, to your point, I think that, uh, you know, they lose productivity in one sense because they’re, you know, all, all, all of a sudden their space is limited how they could use it. Uh, they’re, they’re limited in, in their break, uh, break areas sometimes, you know, restrooms, other areas that are limited, uh, and then even just production area. But on the flip side, you know, as the contractor, if, if we’re not able to go in and, and hit the plan that we kind of originally set up, you know, if they gave us access to certain areas and, and now all of a sudden, you know, they see that they’re losing production and they need some of this space back. Yeah. And obviously that turns to production loss on our side. Uh, all of a sudden we’re not able to produce, you know, you know, amount of area that we wanted to complete at in a certain time.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
Uh, so, so now we’re losing productivity. Uh, so two, two ways right there to just, you know, be cautious and, and, and think about, uh, I think that, you know, what happens is you go into these construction projects and everybody’s excited, everybody’s, you know, happy to get this going, and you go in real with a real optimistic plan. Uh, and, and I think both sides are guilty for that. You know, the owner’s like, we can, let’s get this started, man. We can, we can, you know, work in this little bitty space and we can make this happen. And, you know, we’re saying the same thing on our side. Yeah, let’s get it going. We’re not gonna interrupt you guys. We’re gonna make it work. Uh, but, but then sometimes the reality is maybe those plans were a little too optimistic and, and needed to be a little more realistic. Uh, so, you know, I think that you have to look at that and, uh, and, and try to limit the, the loss of productivity, uh, the best you can to do a realistic plan. This is an important point especially for General Contractors Baton Rouge.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Yeah. It gets back to what Phillip had mentioned earlier, how, you know, you, you might, the C-suite people might know what’s gonna go on and, you know, and their task was disseminating it to their team, but the team may not really have a, you know, a realistic idea about, you know, what they’re gonna be up against to try to do their job. And, uh, another interesting stat that we had in this outline, you know, for this part one that we’re talking about, you know, the, uh, impact on operations and functionality is that, uh, by having someone want to stay in the space, it can actually increase on average, uh, a project’s timeline between 20 and as much as 50%. That’s significant. So
Speaker 3 (11:01):
I’m, I’m surprised it’s only 50%. I, I can see a double in the duration of a renovation project at times. Yeah. I
Speaker 2 (11:08):
Think sounds optimistic. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:09):
Just, just to be fair to play both sides here, you know, the loss of productivity on the owner side, I think is a reality during renovation. Even if they move out, you know, if they move out to a lease space or to a modular, they’re not functioning as efficiently as they were. But yeah. What that allows is a, a shorter, quicker hit. So yes, if the renovation is gonna take four months, if the building’s completely unoccupied, but if they have to phase it because it’s occupied, maybe it takes six months, you’re, you’re prolonging that productivity loss. Yeah. So if, if, like you said, maybe there’s statistics, if they’re losing 20, 40% productivity, maybe in a modular or in a, in a lease space somewhere, it may not be quite as bad ’cause they don’t have the noise and the dust, but they’re also not in their regular environment. Uh, but you’re able to, to shorten the duration of that pain, get them back to working efficiently now in a much, you know, in an improved space where maybe they’re even more efficient.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
Absolutely. So anything else in this part one, John, you want to touch on? Well,
Speaker 1 (12:09):
I mean, just thinking about timeline, you know, uh, timeline is something that, you know, we’re, we’re always held accountable for as a general contractor. And, uh, you know, in these instances where we’re not meeting the plan, and I kind of keep referring to the plan, and we hadn’t even talked about a plan, but generally, you, the beginning of a project, we would come together and discuss a plan for, you know, how this renovation’s gonna happen, and we would set some expectations as far as what kind of space we need, you know, what kind of, uh, walkways are we gonna need. And, and so I keep referring to that, and, um, we need to be able to hit the initial plan. Uh, but if not, then obviously there’s gonna be some timeline, uh, ramifications. And yeah, a timeline is something that’s usually real important to the client. It’s something that’s, you know, we’re, we’re kind of held accountable to. Uh, but the client needs to understand that if, you know, if we can’t do the initial plan, if we can’t do the things that, if
Speaker 2 (13:03):
They’re the one impacted it <laugh>, I’m sure that the General Contractors Baton Rouge can appreciate that.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
If we, if we, if it’s not going exactly as planned, then yeah, there may be some ramifications on time and it may need, it may need to be extended. Yeah. And I think sometimes it’s hard for clients to wrap their mind around that because, well, the job’s not really changing so much. There’s no new work, there’s nothing like that, but yeah. But just that disruption, it can cost, you know, a, a decent time delay and more so than they would realize.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
Yeah. Even if it’s a one day or two days of a delay that’s significant when you, you know, total up the cost for, of each person that would be on that job for that day, it’s not cheap. So, Philip, we know that you’ve been involved in a lot of these type of renovations over the years. Ha. Have you witnessed any of this, this stuff firsthand, you know, the, the loss of productivity or you see employees struggling with, with dealing with this situation when they really weren’t fully prepared for what it was gonna be like?
Speaker 3 (14:01):
Yeah, definitely. And honestly, preparing for this conversation today, I, you know, I’ve done, in the last 20 years that I’ve been practicing architecture, a majority of my projects throughout that entire period have been renovations. Wow. So, you know, why is it now that, that I reached out and said, man, I’m feeling some pain on these occupied renovations. I wanna have a conversation about it. Good question. Uh, so I was, I was thinking about that and going through some, a list of projects that we’ve done over the last five years to try to see has something changed. And I think what I’ve realized is renovate my own house right now, and, you know, a family of five, three young girls, you know, we’re, we’re staying in the house. It’s, it’s occupied. We’ve been, uh, we’re going on probably eight or nine months now at this point.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
We’re on the home stretch. But Wow. You know, it’s, I think what’s happened, it’s not that the projects have gotten any different in the office, it’s just that when I hear the stress that the owners are going through and the users and the, the folks who work out of those facilities are going through, I empathize with ’em now because when they’re, when they’re saying it, now I’m thinking of what happened yesterday at my house, or what happened last week at my house. And, you know, it’s caused me to change my perspective with, with the owners, but also with the contractor, because, you know, it’s, it’s easy for us as, as folks who work outta these facilities or, or live in the facility to, you know, to really get frustrated with a contractor because like, why, why wouldn’t they have thought about this? Yeah. You know, but these conversations aren’t had early and, and that they’re not brought up in the design phases. They’re not brought up to the, to the level of, uh, detail that they need to be brought up to for sure, uh, prior to the start of work, then the stress just happens at the worst possible time. And it’s, it’s more costly and more impactful to try to regroup and change it in the middle of construction than it would’ve been to actually have that more frank, more detailed conversation earlier.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
Absolutely. So, so one thing that you talked about, Phillip, as you were talking about, uh, talking about your renovation and, and living in it, I’m sure you guys aren’t doing this, but you know, when you’re working in an occupied space, and let’s say there’s 10 employees, all of a sudden you have 10 inspectors, <laugh>, they’re walking around the job site, looking at stuff, uh, pointing out stuff that’s not right. Uh, you know, they may even be pointing out something that’s, uh, not complete, but they’re calling it not, you know, not finished or not correct, but it’s, it’s not been addressed. Yeah. Uh, so if you’re not careful, you know, that can lead to lost production. You, you can end up having meetings over fires that that isn’t actually a fire because it just, it hasn’t been completed yet. Absolutely. Um, so have you, have you ran into that at all? Have you seen some of that?
Speaker 3 (16:47):
Yeah, maybe, maybe not so much from the, like the inspector perspective, but what I’m thinking, what comes to mind as you mentioned that, is when, when your owner’s reps, when your, when your owner’s team is in the space that’s being renovated, and even though you try to partition it off and create routes where as you stay on this side, we stay on that side, there’s gonna be some gray area where they got across maybe to get to a bathroom, maybe to get to a, a certain exit point, or to meet a customer who came in the wrong way. And, and almost goes, you almost can’t avoid it, where they’re gonna hear some things that you normally wouldn’t hear. ’cause they’re usually your owner is not on the construction site. Exactly. All it takes is a, a subcontractor to be talking to one of his buddies and say, man, look at this. This is another great point and one that General Contractors Baton Rouge should take note of.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
Right. Who drew that? Or whose idea was that? Man, we could, we could have. And then you get a call from that owner’s rep saying, why the heck are we doing it this way? Oh, yeah. And it’s, what are you talking about? Well, you know, this subcontractor said he would’ve done it differently. It’s why, you know, in no other situation would the, the people who are gonna use that space at the end be in a position to actually hear those words from a subcontractor. But that’s where it gets dangerous, particularly if you’ve got someone on the owner side. Maybe they have built a couple houses or something. They know enough to be dangerous. Yeah. And they’re, they’re walking now behind these subcontractors. I’ve had a, I’ve had a subcontractor come to me when we were at, when I was at a design build firm and say, you know, if this owner’s rep’s gonna be behind me and my team every day, we’re not coming back. This was a framework. Wow. He said, you know, y’all need to, y’all need to do something because my framing crew is gonna demobilize until this guy is not behind me anymore watching what I’m doing. Wow. So
Speaker 1 (18:35):
I’d call that a loss of productivity <laugh>. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
And you get somebody walking off the site, and it’s, it’s hard to avoid that, you know, if you’ve got someone with just enough knowledge, they’re not used to having their space renovated. So sometimes it is not that they’re out to get anybody, they’re kind of excited about it to say, man, I’ve built a couple houses. It’s kind of cool. Like it to kind of, they
Speaker 2 (18:55):
Wanna be a part of it,
Speaker 3 (18:55):
Right. <laugh>. Yeah. That’s where it can get dangerous from what I’ve seen. Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (19:02):
Do you have a construction project, but you just don’t know where to begin? Let us show you the steps that are necessary to make your project a reality. I’m John Kelly with Kelly Construction Group, and I wanted to jump in here for just a second and let you guys know that here at Kelly Construction, we’re more than just a builder. We’re your one stop solution. We want to help you with planning, design, permitting, and construction. If this sounds like a solution, you need reach out to us today. We’ve left the links in the show notes, set up a call. Now let’s get back to today’s show. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
And, and similarly, you know, our experience is the same, uh, I call inspector there, that was a little sarcastic, but, you know, they like to, they like to check out the space and, and, and point out stuff that, you know, maybe don’t quite meet their eye, but usually it’s a situation that it’s, it’s uncomplete work or whatever. So Yeah. So something that you run into, it’s, it’s not huge, but, but it’s out there and it happens. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
You know, it’s something else, like you said, you want to see both sides of it. So kind of looking at it from even another facet, another side of it that we haven’t talked about is like the, the clients or tenants, customers, you know, perspective, you know, them showing up to a construction site. Have you dealt with that before?
Speaker 3 (20:13):
That that’s what we deal with the most often. And that tends to be the conversation that is actually had, because the, the C level and the facility managers, they are thinking about their customers. Mm. A lot of times they’re not, they’re not thinking about their own team members as much as they’re thinking about their customers. Yeah. We do a lot of
Speaker 2 (20:30):
A source of revenue. That was
Speaker 1 (20:31):
A good point that, that’s a very rare point.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
I didn’t mention this in the beginning, but we, we do a lot of banking and credit union work. So, uh, they, all these facilities that we’re renovating have customers coming in daily. Wow. Some of ’em have, you know, a lot of them have vaults with safe deposit boxes, and you can’t tell your customers, you can’t come to your safe deposit box for this two month period while we’re renovating. Wow. So you gotta come up with a plan for how do they get to that. Uh, and then the other challenge that comes with this is, you know, a bank tends to be three to 5,000 square feet. You know, it’d be one thing if you had a 20,000 square foot building and you’re renovating Yeah. In two phases, room where you could say, Hey, you stay outta this 10,000 square feet while we renovate. And then you have a larger site in that case, usually with more parking to kind of partition off construction routes versus, uh, the public.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
But yeah, that’s not the case. And you got three or 4,000 square feet, you know, there’s, there’s only so much space that you have to deal with. And, and it’s kind of hard to not be in the middle of the action, even if you do build a dust partition and block off a thousand, 1500 square feet for the staff. Uh, and same goes for the site to where if you’ve only got 15 parking spaces and now the contractor needs seven of ’em. Yeah. Yeah. Where did, where does your staff park, where the customers park? Where’s that route from the parking to the building that’s not also shared with construction, so, exactly. I know we’ll get into that a little more on the safety side of it, but I, I do, I have seen to where that conversation’s probably had in a little more detail because they say, you know, uh, particularly with banks and credit unions, they’ve gotta, they have to give their customers 30 days notice if they’re gonna shut down a lobby, for instance. Hey, you can’t come inside the building during this period. They’ve gotta get that word out well in advance. That’s not the case with all businesses, but it’s, it’s a, it is a good thing, but it, it makes it challenging for us, uh, probably in a way that we should have been realizing anyway, that we need to have that conversation earlier so that everybody has the, uh, everybody has, you know, the ability to plan in a little more detail earlier.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
Absolutely. And so, any more thoughts on this part, John?
Speaker 1 (22:37):
Well, just thinking about the site access and how, you know, how that limits, uh, you know, productivity too, and that, and that, again, I, I like to look at it from both sides. I mean, you know, from, from a contractor standpoint, how, how close we are to the, you know, to the work area, obviously, uh, really helps, but mm-hmm <affirmative>. But to Philip’s point, you know, a lot of times considering their productivity and looking at their, uh, you know, their customers, then a lot of times our, our, our setup or, or site, you know, area may be further away from the building. Uh, and recently we’ve had it so far that, you know, we needed a golf cart or something to get out there to it. Yeah. Uh, so, you know, site can actually, uh, you know, hurt, hurt productivity from both sides, you know, just depending on where you land and what access we’re given. Uh, so, so definitely something that, that needs to be considered early on and, and look closely at. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
Absolutely. All right. So, um, any closing thoughts on part one here about the impact to operations and functionality of the space?
Speaker 1 (23:44):
No, I think, think we, I think we covered it pretty good. I mean, I’m sure something’s gonna pop in mind at some point that we wish we would’ve talked about, but
Speaker 2 (23:50):
You can throw it in there anytime you want.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
There’s always, there’s always another show,
Speaker 2 (23:54):
<laugh>. That’s right. Well, let’s go ahead and roll on to part two, talking about safety considerations and, and, uh, you know, possible liability issues. Uh, you know, there’s hazards that come along with construction sites, inherent hazards. Uh, you gotta think about the ability to have emergency response if somebody, you know, an employee or, uh, you know, even, uh, one of the construction workers a sub or somebody gets hurt, you have to be able to have emergency response to that. And then of course, there’s, uh, liability questions. If someone does get hurt, who’s, who’s at fault. So, help, uh, help us jump in here, John, share some of your thoughts on these, uh, these issues around physical safety and liability.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
Yeah. So safety obviously is something very important to us. I mean, general construction company safety needs to be how on the radar. Yes. And, uh, you know, we want everybody to go home safe. It’s, it’s very important to us to, that all of our work areas are safe. But, uh, I’d like to give Phillip an opportunity to talk a little bit about this before our, before I kind of talk about what we do and just see what you, you know, what is y’all’s approach to, to safety and, you know, how do y’all kind of have some foresight on this, you know, going into a project.
Speaker 3 (25:05):
Yeah. Once a, once the project’s under construction, obviously that’s a hundred percent the contractor’s, uh, job. So I’m not gonna speak to that. But on the planning side, the communication side during design, as far as what is the actual scope of this project, the two elements that I see that, that really are critical, but also usually get, you know, fall a little short, is we were starting to talk about site access. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. You know, what are the routes? What, what is your staff and the public’s route, we, we really need to have like an on paper, a site plan to where we map out and diagram out, you know, if it’s a design build, we should be doing that with the contractor at the table. Yeah. If it’s not, the architect needs to be taking that extra step with the owner to say, you know, once we’re under construction, if you’re occupying this building, we need to plan these routes and, and separate ’em.
Speaker 3 (25:58):
It doesn’t mean it can’t get tweaked once the contractor’s on board, but let’s, let’s not wait until construction to have that hard conversation and, uh, realization. But then also the extent of the actual building renovation to, to get clear, you know, is this a renovation where we’re actually having to saw cut concrete to, to move some foundation items and to actually open up walls to put in some, some large beams and columns. If all that’s happening and, and we’re expecting the general contractor to be shoring up temporarily and stuff, the owner needs to be aware that the major risks involved from a safety perspective there. And Yes. You know, we had the conversation of, you’re on this side, we’re on this side during construction to allow them to phase it and create an actual construction zone for the contractor to work efficiently. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. But it’s kind of on steroids when it, when you’ve got major structural changes to say your team can’t go through there.
Speaker 3 (26:56):
Yeah. Your customers cannot go through there. This is temporary shoring. If something falls, you know, that liability. The contractor needs to be responsible for the liability when it comes to his team, the, the subcontractor’s team, everyone that’s on his site. But you, we cannot allow the bank in, in a lot of cases that we’re dealing with to have the bank staff walking through this space Yeah. With all this temporary structure that’s not designed to have people walking through there with, with high heels to go get to the bathroom. Yeah. Uh, and, and the customers, we better be clear that that old entrance, they were used to entering the lobby that’s no longer, you know, a sign is one thing. We really need to put physical barriers to prevent the folks who aren’t looking at the sign from accidentally walking straight to a construction site where you’ve got some major hazards where you could actually have a beam come down, a roof line come down, something like that. That that could be a major safety issue. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
For sure. Yeah. A physical barrier is a good idea. We’re, we’re all pretty distracted. I mean, I, I see people looking down at phones. Let’s say I see people. ’cause you know, I, I never do that, but <laugh>, uh, no, just kidding. Looking
Speaker 3 (28:09):
At their phones,
Speaker 1 (28:10):
We’re all, uh, we’re all guilty of that. But, uh, you know, you know, my thoughts on it are, you know, obviously, like I mentioned, safety’s very important to us. Uh, and, and we do try to have a specific safety plan for, you know, for, uh, for our jobs. We try to lay out, you know, good routes, uh, that, that allow us to, you know, safely move through a space. And, you know, we have emergency points where you, you know, any event of an emergency, this is where we meet at. This is, you know, this is where you have an emergency vehicle come, if that’s required. Uh, but very important to us. And, and we do spend a lot of time and we actually work with a, a third party company that, that helps us do this kind of stuff. Uh, but, you know, in a situation where we’re working in a space that’s occupied, all of a sudden now you have, you know, a fairly large group of people that, that aren’t typically on construction sites.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
And yeah. You know, one, we have to plan for that, but two, we have to understand that they’re not construction minded, they’re not safety minded. So if we’re going through all this planning and, and making sure that, you know, our, our guys and our subs and everybody’s well informed, uh, it’s probably going to be important to make sure that that group gets that same, you know, that same plan and, and they’re notified in the same way. Uh, and, and, and maybe even more so because they’re not, they don’t do this every day. They don’t think about the, uh, the, you know, the, the, the stuff out there that could be harmful, like you said. I mean, they may be walking through a space not realizing that, man, we got some serious beams that are temporarily, uh, shored up. And they may even go over there and kind of push on a temporary wall or something, just in general conversation, just talking or whatever. So I think it’s, uh, important to, to make sure that safety planning that we have as a general contractor, uh, and, and even as, as an architect in the beginning, make sure that that information is relayed to, uh, to those clients that are actually in the space, uh, and, and working closely, uh, to that, to that renovation. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
There’s, there’s so many aspects to this, the safety thing, uh, during the renovation, I I, I’m always thinking about getting shocked, you know, electrical service being interrupted and, you know, panels being changed out or upsized and circuits being, you know, discontinued or pulled out, new circuits added. And, you know, uh, it’s something that I would be concerned about. Like, uh, someone, you know, finding a hot wire somewhere and, and being somewhere they weren’t supposed to, and they say, you know, you got someone getting electrocuted or something like that. That’s, that would be something would concern me for sure. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (30:36):
I, I think one thing important, you know, that’s not, not just the safety aspect of here that’s different about an occupied renovation that you touched on there is communication needs to happen not only early, but more often. Yeah. You know, we’re, what’s typical for us, and probably y’all, is that a typical construction project that’s not an occupied renovation. You have like a monthly OAC where the owner, architect, and contractor get together once a month at the site. And then in between that, you know, usually the, the architect has somebody visiting the site on a weekly basis. It’s not always a scheduled visit. Usually the owner’s not there. I think that needs to flip when it’s an occupied renovation to where that weekly site visit, maybe it doesn’t need to be a formal sit down with an agenda and paperwork and all that, and talking over through change orders and schedule.
Speaker 3 (31:25):
But there’s so much happening that’s affecting the, the owner’s team that’s in that space that they need to have an opportunity on a more regular basis to be at the table with the owner’s rep, with the architect, with the contractor to say, yeah, wait a second, guys, now that we’re a week into this, this, uh, this temporary partition where you put it, it’s not working, or the noise situation that, that we did this to, to work with it, it, it is not working. We need to talk about changing the hours of that. It needs to be a more regular conversation, not, not a once a month to allow that pain to fester and to grow into a bigger problem.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
<laugh>. Absolutely. That’s a, that’s, that’s a great point that you don’t wanna let things like that drag on and turn it into a big problem. You want to communicate more frequently.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
You know, one thing that comes to mind, you know, listening to you talk about that is like, I can think of a project where we had, you know, big areas, it was a large renovation and, uh, you know, the, uh, the escape route, I guess, if you will, need a sense of emergency kind of changed throughout the project as, as it was phased. I mean, they had multiple exits on this building, but as we were moving one area, you know, that would change the route to actually get outta the building. And, uh, that would be key to, to be able to share that information, you know, more often than not <laugh> weekly or whatever, uh, to, to keep everybody informed. ’cause I mean, the last thing you want to happen is, is some kind of emergency and they go run to what they thought initially was the route only to have it changed. Uh, yeah. So, I mean, I think that meeting you’re discussing would be key in, in a situation like that, you know.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
Absolutely. Uh, one thing else that I’m, I’m very curious about, and, and maybe you can help us out with this too, Phillip, is, uh, the fire marshals take on on, you know, these occupied spaces being renovated. I would imagine there’s some parameters there you gotta adhere to, to, uh, kind of have the Fire Marshal’s blessing share with us what you get a little bit about that, what your experience has been.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
I mean, surprisingly, to be honest, I, I haven’t had that conversation much. I, I don’t, I haven’t seen situations on the projects we’re working on, as I said, tend to be 6,000 square feet or less. It’s probably a whole nother story if you’ve got a larger building with a lot higher occupant load, uh, for us, you know, from a design perspective, when we’re drawing that phasing plan mm-hmm <affirmative>. We’ve gotta make sure you’ve got sufficient exits. So a lot of times with these smaller buildings, if, if the phasing is, is creating a, a temporary space that may be only a thousand square feet with four people, they only need one exit, you know, under, under, uh, 15 people, you can get away with one exit. So I think it comes in, you know, it probably gets a little more complex with a larger facility, but, you know, I think it, it is more about the actual just logistics of having the conversation between the three parties. Yeah. Because you can’t count on the fire marshal to say you in that situation. No, I think, I think it needs to be, yeah. That’s pretty much the practical, the, the practical approach to saying, Hey, let’s make sure that your staff feels safe. And yeah, if they have any concerns about what we’re doing here, let’s give them a, you know, path to have that conversation promptly and, and not wait too long.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
Yeah. Great. Any, any closing thoughts on this section, John?
Speaker 1 (34:43):
Well, I know one of the, one of the questions that you had mentioned or points was, was just liability. And I, I mean, I think, you know, obviously you want to limit the liability as best possible, but I think if you do the things that we’ve talked about, you know, you create a, a good plan in the beginning, uh, you make sure you, you get that plan out to, to all necessary parties. Uh, then I think that you’ve done really about all you can do to, to kind of limit your liability Yeah. You know, outside of some type of accident. And, you know, I think it kind of comes down to, you know, in the situation there, there is an incident, you know, the liability kind of falls on, you know, if it’s the bank that has an employee that’s in an, in an area that they shouldn’t be, or if it’s a plant that has an employee in an area they shouldn’t be, uh, then likely that, that, that entity’s gonna co, co, you know, probably have the liability. Yeah. Uh, but I mean, all you can really do, and, and I guess I’m not an expert in this field, but all you can do is just be prepared as possible. Try to make sure you put everybody on notice, uh, you know, give ’em a good plan. Yeah. And, and, and hopefully that limits your liability, you know, best case.
Speaker 2 (35:54):
Yeah. It seems like as in most things, the better you communicate, the better everything turns out, the better the end results. So absolutely want to, uh, you know, have an emphasis on good communications and frequent communications. All right. Well, let’s go ahead and roll into this last part, this, this third aspect that needs to be considered. And that’s really the, you know, the financial aspect, you know, the true cost of, of either remaining in the space or, uh, you know, vacating the space. And really, we could even look at this not just from the client tenant’s perspective, but also for the contractor, because if they stay in the space, like we, we mentioned a little bit in our earlier parts that it does affect your ability to be productive and, and get the job done. So maybe we can talk a little bit about, you know, what they call labor efficiency penalties, you know, in other words, uh, you know, over cost overruns that can happen on the labor side from somebody being in the, in the site. And then the effect of schedule and then with, with schedule changes, how that affects costs and things like that. Want you, you want to jump in there and help us, John with that?
Speaker 1 (37:02):
Yeah, so I mean, this kind of goes hand in hand with some of the productivity loss stuff that we’ve talked about. Uh, you know, but obviously you want to come in and you want to be able to work off the plan that, that we’ve, you know, that we’ve come up with. I mean, we have a renovation, you know, we’ve talked about how we’re gonna do this efficiently, uh, but in the event that some of that stuff don’t hit quite right and it, it don’t, you usually don’t, I mean, there’s usually, you know, some kind of obstacle or something that comes up, uh, and, and obviously that’s when the, there, there becomes some cost involved, you know? Yeah, for sure. Uh, you know, I think, again, I think we’ve kind of mentioned this, but I think one cost, uh, that kind of gets overlooked is, is, you know, as a general contractor, we’re not out there doing a lot of the work.
Speaker 1 (37:48):
We’re not actually out there, you know, hanging the doors, or actually, we may hang the doors, that may be something we do, but we, we generally are not doing big scopes of, of work. Yeah. And, and it’s hard to kind of, you know, recognize a cost when it comes to that. But, uh, you know, Phillip, you’re in a similar world and we that, you know, as we are, so you understand that, but when a project starts to extend, uh, you know, there’s gonna be a cost associated with that for sure. Uh, and, and, you know, not just from us, but from our subs and everybody else, but those are a little easier to see when, when, you know, when there’s actually a product that’s, you know, getting changed or it’s taking longer, it’s usually easier to, to say, okay, I can understand that. But it’s, it’s a lot harder to kind of see our cost. I mean, we’re managing the project and, uh, just like I say, it’s not a real physical aspect. Uh, so, so sometimes that’s a cost that it’s hard to see, but, but it can be quite costly. Yeah. Um, I mean,
Speaker 2 (38:44):
We in the, we’re in the business of selling time basically as the management company, so to speak. So,
Speaker 1 (38:49):
Yeah. So, you know, Philip, I don’t know if you wanna talk a little bit about that from your side, but I know, you know, y’all have a very similar, uh, similar situation. Yeah,
Speaker 3 (38:58):
Yeah. Typically for, for architects, I know it’s not the case everywhere, but Louisiana, our fees are based on a percentage of construction costs, kind of a sliding scale. So, uh, and, and when it’s a renovation, we have a renovation factor on our fee that’s typically 10%. It can vary a little bit, but what we’ve seen over the years is that’s, you know, particularly when we’re talking about all these, these weekly meetings and things that the, the, a lot more communication that really needs to happen and do this right. It really is more than more than 10% added to our time. So, you know, making sure that, that everybody’s being made whole here because it’s, you know, it’s a team effort, a project, and the owner doesn’t want to be in a, you know, some owners just want the cheapest cost. Yeah. And, and that’s not a reality.
Speaker 3 (39:45):
And these, these renovations situations that needs to be a conversation between all three parties early and often to make sure that everything’s accounted for, making sure that the way they’re gonna operate in their space is as expected, because that affects cost, you know? Absolutely. One thing that, a note I just made to encourage to y’all is when you’re in a hard bid that’s gonna be an occupied renovation, which I know y’all did one recently with us, that was that kind of, you know, I would challenge the contractor to say, ask even more questions about the way this project’s gonna operate. And, and if you didn’t get a phasing plan for the site or for the building, ask for one. And if they, if you don’t get one, draw one and attach it to your bid and say, we’re basing it on this because you didn’t give us one, because you’re not necessarily bidding. You can’t be bidding apples to apples if they don’t give that to you. Yeah,
Speaker 1 (40:35):
That’s
Speaker 3 (40:36):
A great point. It doesn’t mean it can’t change when you’re, when you’re in construction, you got, you got the bid, you got the job. Once you’re under construction, you see something needs to be adjusted. You can, you can make those adjustments. And maybe it affects cost and time, maybe it doesn’t. But if, if one guy was assuming he had the whole building to renovate because nobody was clear, and another guy understood it to be a phased project that was gonna take him six months when the other guy was figuring four. Yeah. It’s not a competitive bid. That’s right. And, and then the architect’s in trouble. ’cause now we got the low bidder who misunderstood the way they were gonna approach the project, and now we got some horrible conversations we gotta have with the owner that Yes. That nobody wanted to have. That’s
Speaker 2 (41:13):
Right.
Speaker 1 (41:15):
Yeah. That’s great. That’s right. That’s a really, really good point actually. Yeah, absolutely. You know, another area that I can think of, uh, you know, that you can kind of run into issues and, you know, cost, uh, impacts if you will, and jobs like this, uh, is one, like, so we already have a bunch of, of finished area and, and you have people working in this space. Uh, you know, we, we had a, a job that we’d done not too long ago that’s kind of an industrial type manufacturing facility. And, you know, we were sharing a space with their employees, well, they actually damaged some of the work that we’re doing. So now we’re having to circle back and, uh, and, and, you know, fix this damage. And, and a lot of times that cost is easy to justify, uh, but it, it may impact time and, and then Yeah.
Speaker 1 (42:01):
You know, it’s, well, I mean, you’re already here, you’re already working. I mean, why do you need additional time to go back and fix this? Yeah. Uh, so we’ve seen that. And, and, and then also, you know, in that same realm, you know, we’ve had it to where we’re working with maybe their vendors. We try to get this job finished and, you know, they’re bringing their vendors in a little bit early to try to meet schedule. And we find ourself coordinating with their vendor, you know, weeks at a time on, on calls that maybe last an hour or so trying to plan out this project with the vendor, which we, we didn’t really have that, you know, planned for, accommodating that. Uh, but, but then once we did actually allow that vendor to come on site and, and, you know, begin their work, then one of our subs actually damaged some equipment. So now all of a sudden, yeah, we’re having these costs that really shouldn’t be ours. Uh, and it really probably just came down to some communication and, and some realistic planning. Uh, so, so that’s two areas there that I’ve recently seen, you know, some cost that, that, you know, kind of sh you know, hopped up that that shouldn’t have been there. And, and in one instance we, we had some additional costs and the other, the owner had a little additional cost. You know,
Speaker 3 (43:15):
I, I think it’s important to back up even, even further and, and, you know, the contractor’s not always involved early enough to be a part of this conversation, but, you know, what are your options? You know, the title of this podcast and the way we started this out, it’s almost like we’re trying to push, Hey, get outta the building so we can have a clean space to renovate in. You don’t always have that option. You don’t always have that option. So Yeah, that’s right. What are the options? You know, I guess you could look at can you lease space nearby and move your team to that space? Do you have another facility with some extra space you can move your team to? Uh, do you want to lease a modular, put a modular building on site for your team to, to work out of That way if you’re serving customers, they still are coming to the same site.
Speaker 3 (43:57):
Yeah. Uh, so that, those are, those are some options, you know, instead of phasing the work and, and crunching your team down into a smaller area of the building that could have all the challenges that we’ve been discussing, but then backing up even further doesn’t even make sense to renovate this building. Exactly. You know, we we’re going through a couple of ’em right now where you scratch a head and like, man, if I could go back in time, I’m not sure that I would’ve advised the client to renovate this. You know, and it’s, if it’s an old enough building with some major structural challenges and, you know, maybe even, uh, traffic flow issues through the site that were never designed well, drainage issues, you start to add all these things up and it’s, man, it’s gonna cost us, uh, you know, two and a half million to renovate this building for what you’re asking for.
Speaker 3 (44:43):
We could have torn this thing down and built a new one for three. Wow. You know, is, is it a big enough delta between those two to where you get the ideal project with the ideal traffic flow through the site? Does the owner want to consider actually tearing it down and building new, it’s not always an option, you know, ’cause it, it is gonna be more costly and it’s gonna add in a lot of cases, it’s gonna add time, not in all cases. Yeah. But that’s a conversation that the architect needs to be having. And if the contractor’s involved in design build early, maybe you raise your hand and say, Hey, I, I know y’all brought me in for this. I’ve got a question. You know? Yeah. Does, does this make sense to do this extensive of a renovation? Yeah. Because maybe we’re gonna, we know we’re gonna run into surprises when we get in there. You know, we, we know we’re gonna run into some, right now y’all are budgeting 2 million, but once we start digging into this thing and opening up walls and finding surprises, we all know it’s not gonna be 2 million at the end. Yeah. You know, does this make sense?
Speaker 1 (45:37):
Yeah. I mean, I think that’s a great area that, uh, you know, that the general contractor and the architect could really bring value, you know? Mm-hmm <affirmative>. You mentioned if the general’s already in the conversation, I mean, we talk about bringing value a lot, and I think that’s a great, uh, great example of somewhere you can really, you know, bring value instead of just wanting a job as an architect and wanting to get this, obviously the renovation’s gonna be way faster from a, a permitting standpoint and just getting this job moving. Yeah. I would assume in most cases, getting, so that means, you know, quicker revenue to your table, if you will. But Sure. I think it’s a great example of somewhere you could bring value. Like, look guys, like we’d really like to see this renovation happen, but I think it’s a better option to go here. And, uh, you know, it may, that may delay the project for you for some time. They may not be quite ready to do that, but yeah, just that you would be willing to, to have that talk and, and, and bring that in. I think that’s a great example of, of how you, how you could bring value. Uh, so great point.
Speaker 2 (46:38):
Yeah, it is a great point. I mean, that, that experience that you’ve acquired over the years of doing all those renos, like you’re saying, you can’t put really a number on the value of that experience and be able to share that up front, have that conversation just like all these other conversations that we’ve talked about, you know, like with the complete staff, you know, really being informed and made aware of what’s really gonna go on once, once the project begins. And all that is just, you know, those are, those are, uh, great added value that, that if we could, you know, develop processes for doing that, we probably would eliminate a lot of these problems that were, you know, talking about that we’ve experienced in past projects from not maybe having that thorough conversation or that thorough understanding with our clients. So anyways, any, anything else y’all want to add to this?
Speaker 1 (47:28):
Yeah, no, I, I, I think we’re probably getting close on time, but I mean, I think, uh, you know, the only thing I would, or I would kind of summarize our show today, just, you know, I think that we’re not trying to say move out. We’re not trying to say stay in. We’re trying to say like, let’s find the best solution. Yeah. Let’s come up with a, let’s come up with a, a realistic plan, not an optimistic plan. Exactly. I like to keep going back to that because I feel like that’s, that’s true. Like absolutely. Let’s, let’s come up with something that really works. And then I think, you know, all this stuff that we’ve talked about today is minimized.
Speaker 2 (48:02):
Yeah. Like, you kind of mentioned something to the effect, uh, I mean, you didn’t use these terms, it’d be my terms. But, you know, there’s that honeymoon phase of like, you know, that newness of, oh, we’re gonna get to do a renovation and this place is gonna be so cool when we get done. And, you know, people get really excited, like you mentioned, people get excited about a renovation and get new stuff and all that, but you don’t wanna let that, you know, that excitement overshadow the reality of the process. And I think if we accomplish anything here today, hopefully it’s just that, uh, there’s conversations that need to be had on maybe a, a a deeper level that maybe aren’t had, you know, uh, by some parties, uh, in different times or whatever, or when we’re looking at these renovation type projects. But anyways, hopefully we, we brought some awareness and attention to, to that.
Speaker 1 (48:52):
So, yeah, I mean, I think we brought some, some, some good value today. I think there’s some great information in here. I wanna say thanks to you, Phillip, for coming out. Uh, hopefully we have you again on the show real soon. Uh, enjoyed having you. Yeah, thanks.
Speaker 3 (49:04):
I appreciate the invite. You know, a lot of pressure now knowing that I was the first. So <laugh>, good luck finding, matching this quality <laugh>.
Speaker 2 (49:13):
It’s all downhill from here, <laugh>, so we do appreciate it, man. Thank you so much for being here. We want to thank all our listeners for tuning into, uh, episode 25. This is kind of a, a milestone for us. Uh, we reached that 25 episode, uh, mark. So I think we’re doing great. The show’s rolling. It’s, it’s picking up a lot of traction, uh, getting, you know, gaining viewers and, and uh, listeners by the day. So that’s really encouraging. And again, like John said, we thank you so much Philip, for being our first interview and, uh, I think it added a lot of value to this show and this subject. And we could go on and on probably for hours on this subject ’cause there’s so much here. And, uh, we may, like you said, John May have to have you back for a deeper dive into some of these elements, uh, on this, on this subject.
Speaker 2 (50:00):
But, uh, thanks for inspiring this episode ’cause you really did your email inspired this episode and, uh, it’s been a great one. So appreciate, uh, y’all being here. Thanks for watching and listening to the show and come back and see us again. Please like and subscribe and, uh, if you have any questions about renovations, guys, hit us up in the comments. We’d love to, uh, hear your comments and your feedback and we’re more than happy to jump in and answer any questions that y’all may have. So anyways, thanks for being here guys. Great show. Appreciate it. Thank you. Yep.