Rowster Belknapp
When Rowster Coffee was looking to expand their brand to their fourth location in the Belknap neighborhood of Grand Rapids, with a planned buildout of a 1,100 SF tenant, they contacted Construction Simplified. Knowing that our team enjoys and respects working with the variety of small businesses across our diverse business economy, their project, and others of like size, proved very challenging due to the limited size to spread out the project costs. Also, given the plumbing and electrical intensity of the project, coupled with the need for an architecturally stunning environment, our team went to work.
At Construction Simplified, we pride ourselves on bringing our large project, construction management, way of thinking to the smallest of projects. We believe that just because a project may not have a seven-figure budget, that a dollar saved is not any less important for these clients. When Construction Simplified gets involved at the onset of a project’s conceptual design, we provide detailed budgeting and invaluable input to simplify the constructability of the designed idea. This results into immediate and recognizable savings without losing any desired environmental intent. We ensure these expected savings are captured by developing complete scopes of work for all subcontractors and suppliers, thus leading to bidding and contracting. By doing this large-scale process at all levels of projects, allow us to nearly eliminate costly changes and delays throughout the construction process.
The overall construction duration of the Rowster Coffee Belknap project was planned for (8) weeks with the goal of opening as soon as possible to capture the nearby university students. With that goal clearly communicated to the project team, we went to work knowing that small projects like this can easily become more challenging to meet the schedule given the limited time of float that exists. However, for us at CS, it just means that we care about every day’s production and preplanning than others may on larger projects. At CS, schedules are a must for any project for very clear communication and expectations for any project owner, investor, and our valued subcontractors.
“Small buildouts will not take shape unless they make financial sense, that is why we work with our clients from a napkin sketch until completion to ensure a desirable value at project completion. There is no reason a project with short durations cannot have a well-thought-out project schedule, just the same with well managed large-scale projects, and then get executed.”
