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CONSTRUCTION
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The Industry’s Newspaper See Page 10
www.constructionnews.net H (210) 308-5800 H Volume 14 H Number 10 H OCTOBER 2017
New career, old job skills
Jobsites on camera
Karen Wagner, owner, Fresh Coat
Kevin Butts, president, Red Wing Aerials
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aren Wagner has an MBA in project management, and as the owner of Fresh Coat North Austin Painting, she finds it as useful as she did when she managed finance departments for Dell. “These now are shorter-term projects, but you get to see results sooner,” she says. Wagner celebrated her fifth anniversary last May as a painting contractor who works out of her home, serving North Austin, Cedar Park, Leander, and West Round Rock. After working at Dell for 18 years, Wagner was ready for a fresh start, and Fresh Coat offered the change she wanted. “I knew I wanted to own a business, so I looked at nine different franchises, and I liked the Fresh Coat business model.”
Their support structure includes a project estimator for reliable quotes and a customer satisfaction survey that permits Wagner to monitor and address feedback. Everything appears to be going strong. “It has been rewarding. This year has been good for revenue growth,” Wagner says. But, there are additional gratifications. “At Dell, I had a lot of good experiences, and it’s a global company, but what I found was I didn’t know my neighborhood. So now, I’m getting to know all my neighbors,” she says. She also enjoys Fresh Coat’s charity project, Paint It Forward®, through which she offered free painting services to a
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lack Friday is retailers’ biggest day of the year and the biggest annual business day for aerial photographer, Kevin Butts. However, Butts isn’t reconnoitering for best buys on Christmas presents. He’s just taking marketing pictures of parking lots filled with the cars of shoppers who are. Butts is president of Red Wing Aerials, which provides aerial photography services to the commercial construction and real estate industries for pre-development, construction progress, marketing, and mapping needs. “We’ll do photos on the front-end for a developer. And then the general contractor will call for monthly construction progress photography. Once the project is
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complete, we’ll have a commercial real estate broker call. If it’s retail, they want photos with a lot of cars in the parking lot. Black Friday is our biggest day of the year,” he says. Tools of his team of pilots and photographers include three fixed-wing aircraft, three drones and access to four helicopters. The airplane is the most efficient of the three platforms when measured in time and travel, Butts notes. Construction clients who most often call him are general contractors and roofers. Sometimes, too, it’s an owner geographically removed from the location. “Photos help everybody get on the same page,” he says. continued on Page 13
An architectural gem lobby and approximately 10,763sf of retail space. Office space is located on levels 1429, while the garage consists of two levels of subgrade parking and 12 levels of above grade parking located directly beneath the office levels. The office building and garage consist of a cast-in-place concrete structure with a full curtain wall facade. A portion of the 14th floor serves as a tenant amenity center with an 8,628-sf conference center and great room, including a 2,052-sf outdoor terrace with views of Lady Bird Lake. The mezzanine level is also home to a modern fitness center with locker rooms and showers. The project site is adjacent to multiple residential buildings, so it was important to maintain a good relationship and open communication with these groups. Several construction activities were carefully coordinated to lessen any impact to the site’s residential and business neighbors.
n the heart of Austin’s central business district, Trammell Crow Company and joint venture partner Principal Real Estate Investors are invested in the development of Austin, as seen through their commitment to redevelop the entire Thomas Green Water Treatment plant, giving it a new look and a new identity. 500 West 2nd Street was the second in four phases to redevelop this historic piece of downtown Austin. The Beck Group who has a storied history working with Trammell Crow, with over 40 years of partnership on construction projects throughout Texas was honored to be selected to build this 500,500-sf Class A office building located at the corner of Second and San Antonio Streets and began construction in January 2015. The 500 West 2nd Street phase of the project was completed in May 2017. The ground floor features the office 500 West 2nd Street exterior view overlooking Lady Bird Lake
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