Ok… not so much. As my last post showed, we have had SO much rain, BUT… the dirt guys have actually finished their work for now. The pictures I’m posting don’t look all that great, but they make me sparkle!

Dirt Pad- View to the North

Robert Tidmore (the ‘dirt guy’) and his crew have finished carving out all of the sand they encountered and replacing it with solid clay to make for a great pad. Since he finished, we have had lighter rains and I’m told this actually helps to compact the dirt even further. The next step here, will be smaller machines

View of the dirt pad- looking South (Paluxy is on the left)

coming in to carve out some of this dirt for where the concrete footings will go. They will then insert the re-bar and then pour the concrete footings. From there, the bottom floor will be poured and the retaining walls will go up. BEFORE any of that happens, there are other things to do in the coming days, but I’ll cover that in the next paragraph.  Of INTERESTING note… in the middle of the picture on the left, if you look real close, you’ll see DEER TRACKS! It looks like they had a party!!

Here’s where we stand as of today—

• Dirt work is finished and ready for foundation work
• We have received the new appraisal (post redesign) and it looks great!
• The ‘three way’ contract for the water and sewer utilities should be approved next week.
• The full building permit should be approved next week
• We are finalizing all banking work in the next two weeks.
• We HOPE to have the next major work underway by July 28th.

Here we are on the last day of June. I’m not sure what the records for rainfall in June WERE, but I’m pretty sure we have broken those records. I know that on June 10th, we soundly broke the single day rain record by 6.4″!! Last night at the site, we received another 3.14 inches of rain. My first place to go this morning was to the site to check on damage.

By 8:00am, the crew had almost all of the damage cleaned up from the roads. We have silt fence and hay bales in the critical places, and yet we did have some leakage, but not a lot. The crew is now going around to all of the silt fence to make sure the level of dirt is moved back down to an acceptable level. IF we had the cisterns installed, they would be totally full by now .

The foundation dirt pad is complete and our contractor tells me that it actually held up very well and there was no damage. So we press on. There is a small amount of dirt clean up to finish, and we MAY not be finished with the rain yet!

I am expecting the appraisal by the end of this week. I’m also expecting financing committal letters to be in by Friday at noon. We should also have our building permit and our ‘three way contract’ by the end of this week. The three way contract is between GenCore, the City of Tyler and a utility contractor. It allows work to be done to connect the main 6″ water feed and the sanitary sewer to the city’s services. This allows us to keep work rolling. We also do have the shop drawings for the foundation re-bar and steel in process. This also helps work to flow while we finish up things like financing. We’re paying for all of this current work from savings and it all gets counted toward our down payment that the banks will require.

Don’t forget to visit www.CorporateGreenTyler.com and click on the “ConstructionCam” image!!

Go to www.CorporateGreenTyler.com and click on the “CONSTRUCTION CAM” logo at the top of the page. READ the instructions!!

You will need this:
User= Guest
Pass=begreen

Little by little we are getting closer to having the images from our cameras available to the outside world. Right now, from our office, we can easily watch all activity at the site and record everything for security. Here are a few pictures FROM the camera, and OF the cameras:

This is 'camera central' at the GAGC trailer	Looking at the Paluxy-Cam	Example of what the live shots will look like

Just a few pictures to keep you up to date. On June 9 & 10, Tyler had the most rain EVER in a 24 hour period. As you might expect, that un-did some great dirt work. Looks like it will take about five days to get things back where they need to be. We also ran into pure beach sand (the white material in the picture. That means we need to dig lower and wider than we expected and then fill back in with ‘select dirt’ that will make for a 100% solid pad.

We are also installing the Site Security & web cameras today! I expect that within 48 hours, we will have links for you to watch the activity at the site!! Notice that we have taken great effort to be friendly to the tree. Garrett Construction built a strap-on device so when we are finished, it can be removed with no damage to the tree. YES… we also have a big chain and lock on it .

Web / Security Cameras # 1 & 2 being installed	Preparation of the solar panel that will power one of the Web / Security cameras	Scott prepares the network cables going to the digital cameras and the WiFi links

Bless me Father for I have sinned. It’s been eleven days since my last post .

We opened and tabulated all of the bids on June 3. This week we fine tuned and ratified to make sure EVERYTHING was covered in detail and that nothing was double bid. Our General Contractor PM (project manager) Wes McClure goes over things with a fine tooth comb. I called him Wednesday with an OOOPs on one ithem that triggered in my brain that I did not see (after Jan Roberts brought it up). I was on hold and Wes picked up. The first words out of his mouth- “Hey Phil… guess what is missing from the bids?” I said- “The security system.” “Right’” he said. Our minds were on the same path. So… we plugged in an estimated number, a scientific one, and we ‘put a nail in it’.

We also had a visit June 9th from our new appraiser- Steve Rosen. I like Steve! Our minds worked about the same speed. He and his associate, along with John Hart (Greater East Texas CDC, aka our SBA loan guy) and I spent several RAIN SOAKED hours looking at the site, showing them the dream, etc. I’m now hoping that the new and improved plans will appraise better and that we can kick this puppy in super high gear.

We also received a VERY neat set of compliments and kind words from the Smith County Commissioners Court. On June 8, they approved their portion of our tax abatement application. During it, the commissioners in attendance were very high on our project. We now have an official four year, 100% tax abatement from our City & County to help encourage our growth.  We are blessed to have this. In turn, by contract, we will add ten jobs over four years (I expect we’ll add ten jobs in two years at our current rate).

For now… the dirt work should finish up in a few more days. We SHOULD have our cameras online by June 15th! I’ll post a note when they are ready to go.

Have a great weekend!

Wow! How the dirt does fly!

I really only wanted to post a few pics to show that there is solid work going on! The first shows a large area for the ‘roll off’ dumpsters we will have on site. It is completely fenced as you can see.

There will be several large bins to collect construction waste so it can be recycled.

The second picture shows all of the Excavation that is being done to get the building into the hillside! There is a LOT of dirt to move, but it will make for a striking building. You can see what looks like stairs in the dirt. This is called ‘benching’. There will be perimeter walls for the building constructed on the pad area, and the benching is done to allow workers safe access to those areas.

This is a panorama view of the property, taken from the south most property line. To the left you can see the construction trailer. All the way on the right is where the excavation work is happening for the building pad. Being a panorama shot (about 180 degrees), you don’t really get a sense of the size of the property, which by the way is 3.2 acres. It DOES give you a view of the beautiful shade we will have in the parking areas!

Here’s a view of the excavation work for the pad, looking to the south. In this area, Jim Wallace will have his fulfillment operation. We’ll also have our sidewalk lift to bring shippments from the ground level, into our storage and provisioning lab.

The Tyler City Council today approved an Ordinance, creating a City of Tyler Reinvestment Zone No. 11 / GenCore at 5750 Eagles Nest Blvd. and approved tax abatement agreements with GenCore, LLC and GenCore Candeo, Ltd.

Immediately after that, we held a press conference (pics below) about the project, and based on the phone calls and emails we’re received- this is the current talk of the town. John Williams is collecting all of the press coverage here—

http://www.corporategreentyler.com/news.php

All three networks were present along with the newspaper.  Likely there will be TV coverage tonight.

Also- today, at the Tyler Chamber ‘State of the City’ luncheon (450 in attendance), Mayor Barbara Bass used our project as an example of Tyler’s Industrial Growth Initiative. We got about 45seconds of ‘extra’ coverage to that group! AND… this afternoon, there is a meeting (not sure what the group is) where Genesis is being used as an example of what is needed in Tyler.

We are SO blessed. I have a special thanks to Jan Roberts for handling all of the press kits (a HUGE hit) and many of the details. John Williams for great graphics and web work. We have a LOT more to do, but today we celebrate!

Phil explaining the project

Tom Mullins (TEDC CEO) addresses the media

The Media

Yes they do as a matter of fact.  We are adding three video cameras to our project site. The first purpose is for security on the site. All video will be ‘pumped’ off site to an undisclosed location for storage and forensic analysis if needed. That use is obvious.

We will also use the cameras to pump images of our progress to our web site (www.CorporateGreenTyler.com ) so you can follow our progress. Again… pretty obvious.

Here’s where we get green. There are many times during any project of this type where I, as the owner, will need to look at some item, progress in detail, make detailed decision, etc. Some of those decisions normally would require that I drive to the site. The cameras should help me, and other subcontractors, to avoid many trips where a picture (live) will help in the decision process. So- trip saved, CO2 saved.

These pictures are of our #3 camera that will be mounted on a telephone pole we have placed on the East side of Paluxy. This camera will look back at the site and over the course of the project, looking to the West, across Paluxy, will give us a time lapse look at the progress over the 14 months.  The picture of the laptop shows the receiving end of the wireless link from Camera #3 back to our control point. It is a 5GHz point to point link. The camera is from Mobotix and the solar plant that will power it all is from PowerUP! We are also going to provide WiFi on the project site for all subcontractors to use, IF it will help save a trip. They can take high resolution pictures of issues and email them to their bosses. We can even do live video feed to any location in the world, if needed!

Oh- Camera #2 is another ‘fixed’ camera that will record all traffic in and out of the site. It is super high resolution and works equally well in daylight and total darkness. Camera #1 is the beast! it is an Axis PTZ (pan tilt zoom) like you will find in Las Vegas casinos. We HOPE to allow visitors to our web site the ability to play with the camera from time to time! At the end of construction, all cameras and wireless links will be repurposed into the security system of the building.

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in Summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.
~Joyce Kilmer, “Trees,” 1914

I LOVE trees.  But I’m not a tree hugger.  I also believe 100% in balance.  Here in East Texas, we live in the middle of a forest–a beautiful forest.  IF we are to expand our lives and our economy, we either have to do this only where God has chosen to place no trees (limited areas), or we need to remove some trees.  Them’s the facts.

We have designed our building to nestle into a hillside that is bounded by two roads (trees were removed to create these roads). The lot began with hundreds of trees, most of which are where the building, parking, drives and support areas need to go.  So we have removed trees.  But we did it very systematically and with surgical care.  It began with our landscape designer, David Scarborough.  David has been creating environmentally friendly landscapes for over 30 years and now, with BWR (our architectural firm), David has designed a sustainable, renewable, beautiful environment in which our building will reside.  To this, we added Mr. Jim Bohlmann, a Certified Arborist.

On May 10th, Jim, David, our construction foreman, and I visited virtually every tree on our property.  Decisions were made about the health of each tree and about its status as a legacy tree (or not).  We found a few trees that simply HAD to stay because of their beauty, history and health.  This required that David even had to go back to the design software and redesign parts of the parking lot to accommodate these special trees.

Jim Bohlmann spent time with the General Contractor and the dirt contractor to educate everyone about the fact that the most damage that is done to trees takes place during the construction phase of a building.  Root systems are ruined by heavy machinery.  Tree bark is scarred.  Jim gave everyone pointers on how to treat these beautiful creations with respect in order to make these trees live well past the life of the building.  Jim also understands that for progress to happen, we need to remove trees.

As a result, here is some of what we are doing to help our trees:

• We are grinding and mulching as many trees, limbs, and leaves as possible.  We have spread much of this over parking and ‘staging’ areas. This will keep the dirt from becoming compacted and thus not allowing water to seep into the soil.
• We will use much of the mulch at the end of the project in our landscaping beds and trails.
• The tall, straight pines will be used in pulp and to make telephone poles.
• The stumps have been sent to a recycle firm (on Old Jacksonville Rd.)  to be ground into mulch.
• We have fenced off special areas as 100% protected zones.  Nothing will be touched in these areas until the very last part of construction.  This helps with the balance of nature.
• We have several VERY special legacy trees that will be carefully moved and used as part of our landscaping, both on this project and on future projects at Corporate Green.

There’s no perfect way to build within a forest, but we are trying our best to be good stewards of the resources God has given to us.

Phil