Calamar Construction Canada Corp.

Building success┬áDave Blades of Calamar Construction Canada tells Gay Sutton how the company is innovating and developing its construction services to make the most of new opportunities.  Economic downturn is not only a time of hardship but also a time of opportunity. For companies that are able to recognize change in a rapidly evolving world and align their practices and ethos to those changes, the chances are there for the taking. One company that is evolving to the new world order is Calamar, a construction company working across the industrial, commercial, office, institutional and housing sectors.┬áIn just over three decades this family-owned construction company has grown from its design-build roots to provide a comprehensive full-service spectrum of construction, development, financing, asset management and property management capabilities. Its aim is to provide everythingÔÇöor indeed any combination of capabilitiesÔÇöthat the client can possibly need for construction, property development and property management. In addition, it has been developing and selling or managing property on its own account.Calamar has four offices and employs over 100 staff members companywide. Its headquarters are in New York, and there are regional offices in Omaha, Boston and Hamilton, Ontario. Vertically integrated, it has highly experienced in-house capabilities for site selection; arrangement of financing, municipal approval and legal work; design, construction and project management; and post-construction property management. ÔÇ£The main advantage of all this to the client is single-source responsibility,ÔÇØ says Dave Blades, vice president of Calamar Construction Canada. This means the client deals purely with Calamar and not with a legion of service providersÔÇöarchitects, consultants, municipal authorities, contractors and so onÔÇöand does not have to rely on sourcing its own mortgage, loan or municipal funding. ÔÇ£In turn, this leads to a much greater speed of project completion. On a typical 14 to 18-month project schedule, we can probably shrink the time scale by six to eight months, bringing it down to a one-year maximum project schedule.ÔÇØ ItÔÇÖs not hard to see the sound economics of that.ÔÇ£WeÔÇÖre able to do this because we can overlap,ÔÇØ Blades explains. ÔÇ£We donÔÇÖt have to wait for the final design to be completed before we can tender the contract to subcontractors and begin building. Take, for example, an office build; once weÔÇÖve completed the structural steel design on the project, we can tender that out immediately. In fact, we will quite often begin construction before we design the internal office layout, and this saves an enormous amount of time.ÔÇØ The construction industry was one of the first to feel the pressure of the downturn, and Calamar has been adapting to the changing market. ÔÇ£The economic downturn has affected a lot of the new construction and land development opportunities,ÔÇØ Blades says. ÔÇ£For us, therefore, there are not as many opportunities in third-party development.ÔÇØ But opportunities do exist, however. ÔÇ£WeÔÇÖre becoming increasingly involved in senior housing, both for third-party for-profit and not-for-profit clients, as well as for our portfolio. ItÔÇÖs a big growth area for us,ÔÇØ Blades says. With age demographics changing dramatically at the moment, the demand for affordable senior housing is greatly exceeding the availability.Similarly, there are certain areas of commercial and institutional development that are going through expansion, and Calamar is focusing heavily on those. The medical sector is a good example. ÔÇ£Where doctors in years past might have located in a building by themselves, they are now grouping together to take advantage of the economies of scale. ItÔÇÖs a big growth area, and weÔÇÖre building medical centers to accommodate a number of doctors and a range of services,ÔÇØ Blades explains. So a practice might include, say, five or six doctors plus chiropractors, dentists, X-ray facilities, laboratories and a pharmacyÔÇöall of which require office, consulting or specialist lab space.Traditional manufacturing, however, is an area the company is moving away from, as it is shrinking in these difficult times. ÔÇ£Many companies in this sector are being forced to downsize or reinvent their business,ÔÇØ Blades says. But all is not doom and gloom. ÔÇ£There are areas within our industrial and commercial division that are providing stability and growth opportunities: areas such as food processing, medical and pharmaceutical manufacturing. WeÔÇÖre also focusing on facility expansion and retrofit, where companies who may previously have been considering relocating are looking to stay in existing facilities but expand and retrofit them, in order to avoid the tremendous cost of moving.ÔÇØPerceiving change is only one facet of future success. ÔÇ£In todayÔÇÖs changing world of construction, the future of Calamar rests on our ability to innovate and push beyond what comes easy, or what programs might have been acceptable in years gone by,ÔÇØ Blades continues.Innovation may take many forms. Calamar not only focuses on offering innovative and comprehensive services to its clients, but it also pioneers innovative building practices. One example of this is ÔÇ£tilt-up construction technologyÔÇØÔÇöa system that has been used in the United States with great success but is relatively new to southwest Ontario. And itÔÇÖs a system that Calamar has been pioneering in the construction of some of its industrial and commercial buildings. ÔÇ£Typically, in traditional precast concrete panel construction, the concrete panels are manufactured and formed offsite, then theyÔÇÖre transported to the site and erected,ÔÇØ Blades explains. ÔÇ£There are limitations to design and size when the panels are manufactured in this way. Here, the foundation and floor slab is installed to become a casting bed for the walls. The wall panels are then formed and fitted into place using a craneÔÇöallowing an entire building to be built in a matter of days. Since the building process is done completely on site, the concrete tilt-up system offers many advantages, including the elimination of perimeter columns and unsurpassed thermal economy. There are limitless engineering design features that can be incorporated into the panels, and they can be a variety of sizes.ÔÇØIn spite of the downturn, Calamar believes it is important to continue investing in emerging technologies and training. ÔÇ£We are continually expanding our resources and our knowledge. We have LEED accredited professionals on staff, for example,ÔÇØ Blades says. ÔÇ£And that enhances our ability to create projects that meet LEED, which is the latest trend in building design and construction.ÔÇØ ÔÇô Editorial research by Vincent Kielty┬á