A few projects I have done recently

[CM1995]

The restaurant and retail world is a strange place business wise.

Received a request for budget pricing to demo this small strip building within a larger big box development. The mall owner is going to enter into a ground lease with a national steak joint for a new building on this site.

The landlords responsibility is to remove the existing building and parking lot, provide a certified building pad, grade and pave the proposed parking lot and bring utilities to within 5' of the proposed building. The front entrance for the proposed restaurant is roughly between the State Farm and H&R Block signs.



This is a nice building with a brick facade on 3 sides on CMU backup walls. The end cap apparently had a business with a drive thru at one time.



This is a good demo job. Our beneficial fill lot is not far for all the non-regulated materials - asphalt, concrete, brick and block. The roof structure is steel bar joists with metal decking and the interior partition walls are metal studs which will all go to the shredder to be made into new ductile iron pipe. Very little will actually go to the landfill.

With the age of the building I would wager the main services from the meter to the panels are copper wire, big wire. If so that will be a nice little bonus.




The building is in good shape, I don't understand how all the $$ works on deals like this but it's our job to price and perform what our customers ask.

We'll see if the project actually comes to fruition. During the year I budget price a lot of projects for our good clients that never happen however by doing so it keeps us in front of them for the projects that do go.

 

[John C.]

We had a stadium that had that happen a few years ago.

 

[hosspuller]

Local chicken joint building was built about 8 years ago, had a major renovation 3 years ago. Will be totally demo'd this summer with a new building replacing it. Same chicken joint. Apparently, the chain owns the building ala McDonald's. Traffic flow is a major problem. With the covid, lots more drive through business. New building will address the traffic flow. I'll bet tax implications have some bearing. Instead of 30 years of depreciation, they get a complete draw down in one swoop. Just a guess.

 

[CM1995]

A little R&R on the highest point in Alabama in the Talladega National Forest not far from the famed NASCAR track.

Wife and I have been here a couple of times but first time to visit High Falls Fall. 3 waterfalls in a rock valley. Pretty neat.

The upper fall.



One of many rock formations along the trail up the valley.



Lucy really enjoyed climbing through the rocks in the creek bed.



Middle fall.

 

[CM1995]

Local chicken joint building was built about 8 years ago, had a major renovation 3 years ago. Will be totally demo'd this summer with a new building replacing it. Same chicken joint. Apparently, the chain owns the building ala McDonald's. Traffic flow is a major problem. With the covid, lots more drive through business. New building will address the traffic flow. I'll bet tax implications have some bearing. Instead of 30 years of depreciation, they get a complete draw down in one swoop. Just a guess.

Same happening here with that national chicken chain. They've torn down and rebuilt stores that were less than 10 years old to put in a smaller building with double drive thru's.

The guys that own the competing chicken shack chain we work for told me the big chain has so much money they can afford to tear down and rebuild existing stores to make them more efficient - IE double drive thru's, kitchen layout and walk out drive thru doors.

Chicken is big business.

 

[CM1995]

Speaking of chicken it's been a busy week looking at upcoming projects.

This is a future chicken shack located off I-20. It's an old restaurant of some sort, long gone.

It's a very flat site covered in asphalt and a relatively small concrete slab that housed the prior restaurant. Bonus for the property is the existing pylon sign they can recover and use for the new chicken shack.




New travel plaza just opened across the street.



These two mafia blocks will be taken back to our yard - don't know what we might use them for but I want'em.

 

[hosspuller]

The concrete blocks are useful in many ways ... especially if they're free. I use ONE block as a Loader backstop for my horse manure pit. I paid $25 for it 10 years ago .. I hear they're $75 to $100 currently.

 

[CM1995]

At the moment there is a lot of activity in the retail and restaurant world in our area. Another project coming up in the next couple of weeks.

Turning a burger joint into another coffee house.



Building and the majority of the parking lot stays intact.



Dumpster enclosure and existing drive-thru to be removed. That's our scope of work on this project.



The majority of the drive thru lane demos in order to facilitate the new double drive thru concept that is all the rage with fast food joints nowadays.

 

[CM1995]

Couple of pics from the paint store project from this week.

60" junction box set that has 4 lines coming into it including the existing outlet pipe.



This 48" junction box ties into the 18" RCP outlet pipe of the strip center we did last year. The gas line is live, the irrigation was capped.



Junction box tying to existing and a yard inlet for the new landscape area. The grade in this area obviously gets cut down to drain.



First time we've set a triple v-grate inlet. This is the box we had pre-cast otherwise it would have had to been built out of brick or block. Not sold on it but it's set to design grade.

 

[CM1995]

The concrete blocks are useful in many ways ... especially if they're free. I use ONE block as a Loader backstop for my horse manure pit. I paid $25 for it 10 years ago .. I hear they're $75 to $100 currently.

HP as far as I know there is no redi-mix companies around here that pour them.

They would make a great 4'-6' tall gravity retaining wall cheap if I could find 20-30 of them. The house the wife and I eventually plan on building has a 5' drop off on the lower basement drive towards a creek they would work great on since it can't be seen from the house or anywhere else for that matter.

Scored 2 jersey barriers on the paint store project.

 

[hosspuller]

HP as far as I know there is no redi-mix companies around here that pour them.

snip...

Around here all the concrete outfits make them.. They don't advertise, so one has to ask.

It's a great deal for them... sell the same product twice. Any left over mix brought back to the yard is dumped into the molds.

Maybe the concrete jobs around you are mostly multi-loads. Then the trucks come back completely empty. Lots of home construction going on here. A recent patio at my house would have sent back half a yard, but, I had truck dump it into the backhoe bucket. I spread it on a path. Just dumped and back dragged it sorta smooth.

 

[CM1995]

We have a couple of the big redi-mix companies Sherman/Lehigh, Kirkpatrick/National Cement and Cemex along with a couple of large regional companies. I'm sure one of them make them but it's very rare to see new mafia blocks around here.

What has been catching on is the volumetric trucks. 10 years ago there wasn't a company doing such in this area now there are at least 3 companies. Called the outfit we normally use a couple of weeks ago that is running 4-5 trucks and the recording on the office phone said "We are not taking any additional orders at this time.." Business must be good.

Really like the volumetric trucks for the concrete we pour which is consist of inverts, pipe encasement and kickers. Only pay for what you get which ends up being a little cheaper than a 3 CY short load of redi-mix that will run at least $500. Up to 3 CY on a on-site truck will run $450-475 which is still cheaper than mixing Quickcrete.

 

[hvy 1ton]

I'm sure one of them make them but it's very rare to see new mafia blocks around here.

How far away is sand? If they have to truck sand a long ways, it's probably cheaper to recover the sand than sell blocks.

 

[CM1995]

How far away is sand? If they have to truck sand a long ways, it's probably cheaper to recover the sand than sell blocks.

The closest sand is about 1.5 hrs by loaded truck south in Montgomery. However most trailer dumps haul crushed limestone down and bring sand back so it's not a one way trip.

They very well might be reclaiming the sand in the wash as all the plants have recyclers by law.

 

[CM1995]

Meanwhile back at the future paint store.

This is an ADS Barracuda storm water quality unit. The pre-cast is a standard 48" manhole with a big plastic funnel and some aluminum fins below that separate and settle out trash and solids in the storm water from the parking lot.



Shop drawing of the unit. Almost 12' tall total including the 6" thick base. The entire unit weighs in around 15k but came in 4 pieces so it was easy to handle
Backfilling the structure. This is where the remote trench rollers really shine. Once the roller is in the hole you play "ring around the rosy" with the excavator placing fill until you reach the top or in this case the flow line for inlet and outlet pipes.


Backfill up to the flow lines and pipe installed. The 2" gas line is live but will be re-routed at a later date. The gas line serves the strip center we graded last year.

This is a better shot of the plastic funnel on the inlet side and the baffle for the outlet side.



All in all this structure was $10.5K with tax on the flatbed delivered...might need to get into the water quality control business..

 

[CM1995]

Mob'd back to the private school dining hall to finish up the final grading and install the remaining utilities in our scope.

The existing road is getting raised around 2.5-3' from existing grade. We are using the spoils from footings, foundations and under slab utilities, it's going to be close to what we need to get to sub-grade.

Main road in front of the new dining hall.



For all the fuss on the architectural side of this project the siding looks like a typical metal warehouse building. Oh well, we don't get paid to design it.



New dumpster enclosure built like a brick **** house complete with HD structural metal roof. The 3-phase transformed pad is inside the metal frames on the right in the foreground.



Pic of the inside of the main dining hall. When it's complete it will be impressive.

 

[skyking1]

We had a stadium that had that happen a few years ago.

My wife and I know where we were when the Kingdome went down. We were over the Seneca street exit ramp at 1400' MSL, towing a 20x50 KZOK billboard. The boss and his wife had a sister station billboard in tow and were right ahead of us. They had made a 2 mile restricted airspace for the implosion, and we were orbiting around that with the banners, along with the competition's two planes and signs. We thought what a great day to bring the wives along, who are usually on the ground setting up signs for us.
It was a mistake. There were at least a dozen looky-loo's in spam cans(cessnas) and pipers, circling around there with us. It was nerve wracking as all get out, since us banner tow rigs are flying at ~50-55MPH and the looky-loos are doing a solid 115 and weaving around us like we were pylons.
I had my hand on the release lever and was prepared to sell that billboard to whoever ran into it.

 

[skyking1]

cm I wish our travels would take us by so I could see your projects. We won't get south of Nashville though.

 

[CM1995]

cm I wish our travels would take us by so I could see your projects. We won't get south of Nashville though.

Sky we're around 4 hr's south of Nashvegas if the traffic on I-65 isn't jacked up.

Anytime ya'll happen to be close hit me up, we'd be glad to have you.

 

[skyking1]

there will be more time in retirement for that.