[timmae]

Welcome to Construction is Easy: Skokie Edition, a new 2 story retail building!!

I've been thinking about posting a dynasty on the life of a construction project, as seen by an Architect, for quite some time. My thought is to provide a thread that I can look back on as the project progresses and see a little better where the process could be improved. A 'post mortem' as some like to call it. This forum will also hopefully provide a reason to continue with posts for the life of the project, something that would be unlikely in a vacuum. I can also provide a glimpse into what goes into a typical project and some of the issues faced. As needed I can provide descriptions as to why things may be done or to what extent my firm is responsible as the Architect of Record.

The best opportunity at the moment is a teardown and new 2 story retail building that my firm started work on back in November of 2014. The building will be occupied by a single tenant that will have space on the 1st and 2nd floors. We have completed due diligence and the project seems to have some legs. I didn't want to start posting on a project too early as it is more likely for a project to be killed during the due diligence phase than at any other point. I will start with work that is already completed, which includes asbuilt site review, zoning review, environmental and geotechnical reports and entitlement approval processes. We recently completed a very similar project in a nearby suburb for the same client so this will be an opportunity to compare and contrast with hopes of improving the process. To that end I will try to post the information in a linear process in order to provide a timeline as to events. All information will be somewhat generic as to not provide site specific or client specific information but the processes and not necessarily the accuracy are my main focus.

Please let me know what you may find interesting and want to know more about and I can provide additional information.