Bird Blog: Week 17

Every week, Jennifer Mankins, owner of the Bird boutiques, tells us about the new 2,500-square-foot store on Grand Street in Williamsburg that she’s getting ready to open. Up this week: choosing a contractor.
Deciding on a contractor was much harder than I thought it was going to be. We actually had too many good ones to choose from. The main things we considered were cost, capability, schedule, and LEED work. We received the final bids last week from the three contractors, Sam, Evan and Mark. Sam has the most green-building experience, and his bid was in the middle price-wise, but this project would be the biggest he had ever done, he doesn?t have much of a crew, and has never done any LEED certified work. I was worried about how long it would take him to complete the project if he was doing a lot of the work himself, and we would have to rely heavily on sub-contractors who are notoriously not very loyal. The work he has done is great, and his passion for sustainable building is infectious. But I just didn’t feel like he was the right choice.

Evan seemed like a better choice. His bid was the lowest: partly because he is extremely interested in getting more LEED construction in his portfolio and was willing to take less profit than the industry standard, and partly because his bid was less inclusive than the others. He recently completed a LEED certified project in Manhattan, so I knew he had the administrative capabilities to handle the immense amount of research, follow-up and paper work involved in the LEED process. He is also part owner of two wood mill workshops in Brooklyn. He has his own crew of workers and he was willing to finance the project up front, forgoing the standard 30% deposit, and linking the payment schedule directly to the construction schedule. Unheard of, and very tempting. I was extremely impressed with his resume and his professionalism, but still wasn?t completely sure he was the right fit for this project.

Mark is an artist, sculptor, builder and contractor. He has loads of construction experience, big and small, has a great crew and though he has never done a LEED certified project, he has done lots of green-building and is prepared for the extra work involved with LEED. He is very familiar with the space, having considered it himself for a studio, and having completed the interior demolition phase of the project, as well as working to resolve the structural issues we discovered upon demolition. And to top it off, he just moved into the apartment upstairs, so I knew he could be at the site everyday and I wouldn’t have to worry about the construction annoying the neighbors! I still had to look at the fact that his bid was the highest, a good 35% higher than what I wanted to pay and 15% higher than Sam and Evan. His bid was by far the most inclusive though, so I didn’t want to penalize him for doing the best job of bidding. It should mean that there are less change-orders once we begin construction. The clincher for me was that he has a shop full of salvaged wooden beams from a turn-of-the-century warehouse that was recently demolished in Brooklyn. It can be locally milled into planks and can be used to clad the walls in lieu of the Kirei Board from China. He included samples of planks in different widths with his bid, and they were stunning. I knew it was the material I wanted to use. But, I wasn’t convinced we could get down to the number I needed, even if I re-examined the architectural scope of the project. We agreed to meet on Monday morning to review the bid and hash out the final details and numbers.

When I arrived at Ole’s office on Monday morning (already exhausted from the first three days of fashion week) it was surrounded with fire trucks and ambulances, and there was chaos in the lobby. Apparently there was an electrical fire on the third floor, and the building had been partially evacuated. But I was told everything was under control, and I was free to head upstairs. I felt very uncomfortable in the elevator heading up to the 30th floor, knowing there was potentially a fire somewhere below, but tried to put it out of my mind. We sat down and got started and I didn?t think much more of it, until about 10 minutes into the meeting, when Mark got up to go check the hallway, and found it filled with smoke. We grabbed our bags (and the drawings!) and headed for the stairs. I was cursing my high heels. Needless to say, we all got down fine, and the fire was just a smoky electrical short, but it definitely lent an exciting edge to our otherwise mundane Monday morning meeting. Try saying that ten times fast!

We resumed our talks down the street at a coffee shop. After reviewing the plans, and the bids, I had already decided some of the architectural scope of the project needed to be cut, for instance, the concrete planters/displays. I knew they would be striking, but I was worried about how inflexible they would be. If there was anything that I didn’t like about them, it would be almost impossible to alter. And they were going to cost about $20k. They could go. Ditto the green roof. It was going to cost us another $20k and not give us any LEED points. And since we are going into winter, it didn’t seem like it should be a priority. It may be something I will add once spring rolls around. We were still going to need Bill to meet us halfway. We went though everything line by line and he took it home to refigure. I had a good feeling. Yesterday we received his new bid and it was now just shy of 300k, my maximum budget. It is still higher than I had hoped, but now I am pretty sure it would be almost impossible to get the number lower, and I think the quality I am getting is going to be superb. Our plans were approved by the Department of Buildings yesterday (this is a post or two in itself) and we are pulling our permits today, signing a contract on Saturday, and getting started on Monday. Finally. Wish me luck.