fbpx Skip to main content
Category

News

Summit Completes the Construction of EJ Basler

By News

Summit Design + Build Completes Construction of Industrial Building in Schiller Park

Manufacturer of precision machine parts expands their industrial campus 

Summit Design + Build, has recently completed the adaptive reuse of an industrial building for EJ Basler Company in Schiller Park. The project included the selective demolition and renovation of an existing industrial warehouse to make way for a new state-of-the-art, 33,000 square foot manufacturing facility.

EJ Basler, a manufacturer of precision machined parts and components, has been a mainstay in the Schiller Park community for over 50 years. The company’s clients include leading companies and distribution centers in North America, Europe, and Asia. Toying with the idea of expansion for many years, EJ Basler jumped at the opportunity to renovate and expand upon the underutilized industrial building located next door to their campus. Along with managing the selective demolition of the existing facility, Summit Design + Build also oversaw the new construction of the 33,000 square foot facility with a connecting corridor. The renovation and new construction also included the installation of a new all glass façade, structural steel reinforcement, sunlight paneling and Ecosteel insulated metal wall and roof panels, with pre-finished exteriors.

Amstadter Architects served as the project architect for the EJ Basler project.

EJ Basler Imagery

Summit Opens New Headquarters Featured in REBusiness

By News

Chicago General Contractor Summit Design + Build Opens New Headquarters

Summit Design + Build LLC has completed the construction of 1040 W. Fulton, a five-story, 42,000-square-foot office building in Chicago’s Fulton Market district. Floors four and five will serve as the new headquarters for Summit. The project also features ground-floor retail space, a green roof and basement parking. Summit used heavy timber construction for the project. The building is the first multi-story mass timber building in the city of Chicago in 50 years, according to Summit. The project team included Hartshorne Plunkard Architecture, Eastlake Studio, Carr Realty Advisors, IMEG Corp., Weaver Consultants Group and WT Engineering. Chad Schroedl, Scott Maesel and Drew Dillon of SVN Chicago Commercial are the building’s leasing agents. First Bank of Highland Park provided construction financing.

See the article on www.rebusinessonline.com

The Completion of 1040 West Fulton Featured in RE Journals

By News

Summit Design + Build Completes Construction of 1040 W. Fulton

General contractor Summit Design + Build recently completed the new construction of 1040 W. Fulton, a five-story, 42,000-square-foot office building with ground-floor retail, a green roof and basement parking in Chicago’s Fulton Market District. The fourth and fifth floors of the building are home to Summit’s new headquarters.

“1040 W. Fulton is a showplace for our company and an example of what is possible in the modern age of wood construction,” said Adam Miller, president of Summit Design + Build.

Heavy timber construction was used to build 1040 W. Fulton, making it the first multi-story mass timber building in the city of Chicago in 50 years, setting the stage for bringing more and larger timber projects to Chicago. A hybrid construction system accommodates both Type I-A construction of two floors of parking on the basement and first floor, and its required fire separation, and Type III-A heavy-timber construction on the office floors.

Exterior walls have steel columns and beams that support the brick cladding. Glulam columns, girders and beams comprise the framing system, while the floor assembly includes a two-inch topping slab. The building is fully sprinklered. Summit Design + Build, both the owner and general contractor of the building, chose wood construction because it is a material consistent with other buildings in the historic neighborhood.

“The project really echoes the neighborhood’s history when it was a meatpacking district and the majority of the buildings were made of raw milled heavy timber construction,” said Miller, “Given this history, it only felt right to use similar materials.” The building geometry and framing plan were also conducive to timber.

The 1040 W. Fulton project team included project architect for the base building, Hartshorne Plunkard Architecture; interior architect for Summit’s headquarters, Eastlake Studio; owner’s representative, Carr Realty Advisors; structural engineer, IMEG Corporation; civil engineer, Weaver Consultants Group; and MEP engineer, WT Engineering. The building is being leased by Chad Schroedl, Scott Maesel and Drew Dillon of SVN Commercial Chicago. Construction financing was provided by First Bank of Highland Park.

See the article on www.rejournals.com

Mass Timber Project Featured in Connect Chicago

By News

Summit Completes Chicago’s First Mass Timber Project in 50 Years

Summit Design + Build, LLC recently completed the new construction of 1040 W. Fulton, a five-story, 42,000-square-foot office building in the Fulton Market District. Heavy timber construction was used to build 1040 W Fulton, making it the first multi-story mass timber building in Chicago in 50 years.

Floors 4 and 5 of the building are home to Summit Design + Build’s new headquarters. “1040 W. Fulton is a showplace for our company and an example of what is possible in the modern age of wood construction,” said company president Adam Miller.

As both the owner and general contractor of the building, Summit Design + Build chose wood construction because it’s a material consistent with other buildings in the historic neighborhood. “The project really echoes the neighborhood’s history when it was a meatpacking district and the majority of the buildings were made of raw milled heavy timber construction,” said Miller.

See the article on www.connect.media

Summit Completes the Construction of 1040 W Fulton

By News

Summit Design + Build Completes the Construction of 1040 W. Fulton

Summit Design + Build, LLC recently completed the new construction of 1040 W. Fulton, a five-story, 42,000 sf office building with ground-floor retail, a green roof and basement parking in Chicago’s Fulton Market District. Floors 4 and 5 of the building are home to general contractor Summit Design + Build’s new headquarters. “1040 W. Fulton is a showplace for our company and an example of what is possible in the modern age of wood construction,” said Adam Miller, President of Summit Design + Build.

Heavy timber construction was used to build 1040 W Fulton, making it the first multi-story mass timber building in the City of Chicago in 50 years, setting the stage for bringing more and larger timber projects to Chicago. A hybrid construction system was utilized in order to accommodate both Type I-A construction of two floors of parking on the basement and first floor, and its required fire separation, and Type III-A heavy-timber construction on the office floors. Exterior walls have steel columns and beams that support the brick cladding. Glulam columns, girders, and beams comprise the framing system, while the floor assembly includes a two-inch topping slab. The building is fully sprinklered.

1040 W Fulton

Summit Design + Build, both the owner and general contractor of the building, chose wood construction because it is a material consistent with other buildings in the historic neighborhood. “The project really echoes the neighborhood’s history when it was a meatpacking district and the majority of the buildings were made of raw milled heavy timber construction,” said Miller, “Given this history, it only felt right to use similar materials.” The building geometry and framing plan were also conducive to timber.

The 1040 West Fulton project team included project architect for the base building, Hartshorne Plunkard Architecture; interior architect for Summit’s headquarters, Eastlake Studio; owner’s representative, Carr Realty Advisors; structural engineer, IMEG Corporation; civil engineer, Weaver Consultants Group; and MEP engineer, WT Engineering. The building is being leased by Chad Schroedl, Scott Maesel and Drew Dillon of SVN Commercial Chicago. Construction financing was provided by First Bank of Highland Park.

1040 W. Fulton Imagery

Summit Hosts ACE Mentorship Students

By Florida, News

Summit Design + Build hosts ACE Mentor Program of Greater Tampa Bay

Recently, the Tampa office of Summit Design + Build had the privilege of presenting to an impressive group of high school students from the ACE Mentor Program of Greater Tampa Bay. This free, award-winning afterschool program is offered to students interested in pursuing careers in the Architecture, Construction and Engineering industry. The success of the program is clear with over 70% of ACE seniors either going on to a skilled trades program or to college with an industry-related major. With more than 70 chapters operating across 37 states, the ACE Mentor Program awards approximately $2.5 million in scholarships annually, as well as offering students summer camp and internship opportunities.

Lead by Summit’s Tampa project management team, Courtnei Watts and Tsvetan Sirakov, the presentation on site logistics aimed to provide a real-world perspective on the complexities and challenges of running a successful construction project. The scholars learned about overcoming challenges like site access, materials storage and staging, anticipating human behavior and taking steps in advance to ensure adherence to policies and regulations that have been put in place. The students were shown that no project happens in a vacuum and that there are innumerable external factors that need to be taken into account, some in our control and some not.

This invaluable perspective that our talented project managers were able to provide is what this program is all about. The ACE Mentor Program gives the next generation of construction industry professionals a window into the world outside of the classroom and provides them tools they’ll need to succeed in it. We at Summit Design + Build are honored to be among the many mentors that have volunteered and contributed their time and experience to give back to the young participants of the ACE program.

Images from the Event

Rock climbers to scale $11 million building

By News

Chicago Construction News Featured 1111 West Addison

Chicago has issued an $11 million building permit for indoor rock climbers at 1111 W. Addison St. on a site previously occupied by a Taco Bell restaurant. Summit Design + Build, LLC is the general contractor.

“The building will feature up to three retail tenants on the ground floor, with the upper three floors being dedicated to a single tenant, Planet Granite, which is a ‘bouldering’ and fitness facility,” 44th Ward Ald. Tom Tunney reports on his web page.

“The 65’ tall structure is approximately 58,000 sq. ft. and will have loading and bike parking in the rear and up to 20 parking spaces leased out to use by retail patrons on non-Wrigley Field event days at the public parking garage that is currently under construction at the ‘Clark and Addison’ project,” Tunney writes.

“The exterior of the building is primarily glass and metal panel, and it’s ‘folded plane’ geometry allows the building to create small terraces for retail tenants and create setbacks to the building so its scale can adjust to the heights of the residential buildings to the west of it,” Tunney wrote. :”The east and west façade will also have a large super graphic overlaid onto the metal panels themed to echo aspects of the anchor tenants climbing facility to give these two building elevations more visual interest.”

See the Article

1111 West Addison Renderings

How Midwest Construction Is Adapting to the COVID-19 Threat

By News

How are contractors and industry non-profits adjusting to life and work amid the pandemic? One day at a time.

In late February, Clayco founder Bob Clark canceled his company’s annual meeting, planned for Chicago two months later.

Having employees travel from across the country was something Clark, executive chairman of the design-build construction firm, was uneasy about having watched news about the new coronavirus spreading across China at the time. Experts expected it to spread around the world, but the virus hadn’t yet reached the U.S. Clark canceled the meeting anyway. Hundreds of construction cancelations—meetings and some whole projects—have occurred since.

“I had huge pushback in the company,” Clark says. “I had people that thought I was kind of kooky. Even my wife thought I was scaring everybody unnecessarily.”

[For ENR’s latest coverage of the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, click here]

Contractors and the companies that work with them have all had to adapt, changing schedules, work practices and planning for a future that, even if regulations are relaxed, will still require some level of vigilance against the threat of COVID-19.

The construction industry must live the code of safety first, Clark says, and many contractors felt comfortable putting new rules in place to prevent the spread of the virus. Clark released a plan for Clayco construction sites, adopting extreme site cleaning and personal hygiene, as stated in the company’s COVID-19 Construction Guidelines. Clayco gave employees screening questionnaires with questions like “Do you feel sick?” and “Did you commute to work with anyone?” as they entered work sites. A nurse is now stationed at every Clayco construction site to take the temperature of workers as they enter the site, Clark says.

Two months after putting the new procedures in place, Clark still drives by Clayco sites in Missouri and Illinois (Clayco is headquartered in Chicago), to see if everyone is following guidelines.

“I didn’t see anything that I didn’t like, and I’m pretty critical,” he says. “I pulled up and there’s a nurse at the front. She looks like she’s in an emergency room at a hospital. She’s fully gowned and has her shield on and her mask on. I couldn’t even see her face.”

Implementing new safety measures is familiar to the construction industry. Clark shares all of Clayco’s safety guidelines on the company’s website.

Ken Swartz, vice president of construction management at design-build construction company Summit Design + Build LLC, says that his company has adopted a policy where each person entering a construction site must check in with the project’s superintendent every morning. Through this change, Swartz has noticed a strange phenomenon—workers on construction sites are now curious about each new person on that site.

“What we found is that these job sites have literally become bunker-mentality communities,” he says. “If somebody new comes to the job site, they all want to know who that is, where they’ve been. It’s like allowing them into the community.”

The most frustrating change, Swartz says, is the delays in material deliveries. Some Summit construction jobs have been delayed because shops it works with have been temporarily closed by COVID-19. A 12-person countertop contractor Summit works with was shut down and workers were self-quarantining after someone contracted coronavirus, he says, so now countertops are a week late because they have fewer people to do the job.

And then there’s the issue of actually working on the job. Sure, workers are now wearing masks and gloves in addition to their hard hats and safety glasses, but certain jobs require people standing and heavily breathing in close quarters.

“We have a 6-ft-wide by 12-ft-tall window, which doesn’t happen with one person,” Swartz says. “They’ve got to have two people standing side by side putting that window in. So now, Mr. subcontractor, what are you going to do to mitigate your employees’ exposure to being so close together?”

What was once a process built off the muscle memory of contractors must now be broken down into pieces to account for the threat of the virus. Swartz says that Summit also requires subcontractors to have specific safety plans: How can a two- or three-man job, like installing a window, be done safely? How will people stay safe while the job gets done?

“As long as we can keep our people safe, to be able to keep working and help them all continue to get their paychecks,” Swartz says. “If we let our guards down and all of a sudden, a high rise in downtown Chicago ends up with 20 people with COVID, we run the risk of the whole city getting shut down.”

Daniel Safarik, editor-in-chief at the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, says that the most significant challenge for the nonprofit group has been the need to cancel the 2020 Tall + Urban Innovation Conference. The event, scheduled for April, would have brought people to Chicago from across the world and is one of the Council’s biggest moneymakers. Safarik says that Council executives decided to cancel the conference in February when they saw that the virus was spreading across Asia.

The virus will unquestionably damage the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat’s coffers this year, Safarik says, as most of the Council’s revenue comes from conferences. But not all hope is lost. The Council has decided to take much of the programming and scheduled events from April’s conference and move them to the group’s other flagship event, CTBUH 2020 Conference, scheduled for October in Singapore. While they can’t be sure this event will happen—no one knows when the virus will relent and allow for travel to return—Safarik says that the Council has been pleased that they have more than 120 speakers scheduled so far, which is critical to the success of their events. Funding is still uncertain, as it usually comes from companies noticing others are speaking and sponsoring, motivating them to do the same.

“That rhythm is a little bit off at this point, though, because we’re really not trying to push people super hard for commitments, because we don’t know if we’re going to be able to honor them,” Safarik says.

The bright side, he adds, is that the council’s employees are able to keep working on the conference from home. They’re all bracing for uncertainty, since the conferences used to fund their work could be canceled for the foreseeable future.

Several construction executives ENR spoke to for this story said that now is the time for companies to focus on adapting to the pandemic. No one knows how long it will last, but they believe that COVID-19 will change what kind of structures companies want to build.

“We have been planning for how to come back to work in the markets where there has been a shutdown,” says Christopher McFadden, vice president of communications at Turner Construction. “In the markets where construction is considered essential, our response is changing daily. We’re already planning logistics for when we can return to our office here in New York City. We’re taking measures such as putting up plexiglass barriers in office kitchen areas and other spaces and staggering seating in cubicles. It’s not going to be just going back to work.”

McFadden said that Turner is using the time for training, testing what capabilities of its virtual design and construction programs can be expanded and planning for the logistical changes that will necessarily come with reopening where necessary. He stressed that sites in markets where construction has been shuttered don’t just reopen as soon as possible, and that safety from the virus on the job will remain essential.

“We’ll have to keep changing as we learn more,” Clayco’s Clark says. “The virus has only been around for [about] five months and it’s already very much a changed environment.”

See the Article

New 42-unit West Loop Condo Building

By News

Construction permit approved for boutique West Loop condo project, 1400 Monroe

The city of Chicago has greenlighted JK Equities’ 42-unit, seven-story boutique condominium building, 1400 Monroe. The property, located in Chicago’s West Loop, is expected to be delivered by summer 2021.

Milburn Demolition and Dismantling has completed demolition of the existing building. Construction will be led by Summit Design + Build and Lakeside Bank is financing the construction loan.

Pricing for 1400 Monroe starts in the $760,000s and ranges up to $2.35 million with sales led by ON Collaborative, with homes ranging in size from 1,242 to 3,139 square feet, offering two, three- and four-bedroom layouts. To date, more than 30 percent of the building’s 42 residences have been sold.

Designed by the award-winning, Chicago-based architecture firm Booth Hansen, 1400 Monroe was designed in part to create harmony between the neighborhood’s industrial past and today’s modern design. The façade will be made up of a rich depth of grey brick paired with metal detailing and industrial-sized windows flooding the homes with natural light.

Residences, designed by highly acclaimed, New York-based Mojo Stumer, boast modern, open-concept floor plans that are designed for space efficiency with oversized kitchens and elegant finishes. Most homes will feature large balconies for entertaining or Juliet balconies, and select second-floor homes will feature expansive outdoor terraces.

See the Article