When two people asked me what a footing is, I thought I might explain it here while you look at some pictures of today’s pour.

If you have a support wall, or retaining wall (as examples), you can’t just pour a vertical wall of concrete. It would sink into the ground under its own weight. Just like God made us with feet, the first thing when you are constructing anything that has a concrete slab, or walls…. you must create footings. As you can see, it consists of a large hole filled with ‘rebar’ (reinforcing steel bar). Concrete by itself is not all that strong. Add rebar to it and it is mightily strong. There is a lot of science to the size and placement of the rebar to get maximum strength.

You’ll notice the pieces of rebar that are vertical and have the orange safety caps on them.  The vertical walls will be located where you see the vertical rebar. The walls will be much taller than the rebar that you see. More rebar will be tied to the part you see to make the vertical walls really strong and to hold back dirt. Where you see the wider double row of vertical rebar, that is where we will have a flower/landscape bed in front of the patio.

There is a couple more weeks of footings and foundations to be done before the actual slab gets poured. If the weather holds, next Tuesday (5/22/) we’ll be pouring the remainder of the parking and the entry. Stay tuned as we… Bury Money .

A couple of miscellaneous things….

We are also doing a test of the stone that we plan to place on parts of the building. We want it to look good with the entry retaining wall boulders that we already have in place. Here’s what it looks like before adding mortar. Looks pretty good so far!

Also, I thought you might like to see a picture of the camera that we call PTZ (pan, tilt, zoom). It’s the one inside the dome. You can play with this camera and two others by going here: http://www.corporategreentyler.com/#section-5. Yes…. we ARE recording 24/7 for security reasons from multiple cameras.

Progress progress. We love and need the rain in Tyler, but it does slow progress especially at this stage.

Architect Steve Fitzpatrick and site foreman Jared

Right now, the MAJORITY of the progress is behind the scenes, getting ‘shop drawings’ done of critical things like foundations, retaining walls, etc. Shop drawings are the highly detailed drawings that, as it sounds, are given to someone in a shop to build from. Doing these also points out minute things that may have been missed in the higher level processes.

As well, we are working on nailing down all of the FF&E items (Furniture, Fixtures & Equipment). Desks, phone system, data services, cabling, storage, appliances, etc. It’s fun AND nerve wracking. There is a large part of you that wants to not make mistakes and to do things right the first time, right? In the past two years, I’ve added a lot of ‘mods’ to a motorcycle we own. Like the FF&E process- fun AND nerve wracking.  I get this part of the process very well. As I did things to the motorcycle, I was nervous because they were things I’ve NEVER done. Oh, in principal I’ve twisted a wrench and done some electrical work, but not with high risk! I guess you can say the motorcycle helped build my confidence and stretch my wings. With the fantastic help of my assistant Jan, smart vendors and contractors, loads of spreadsheets, the love of my bride and God’s help… I’m ready.

Footings

At the site, we are STILL ‘burying money’! By that I mean that most all that we are doing and the money we’re spending is going in the ground. Parking and driveways, footings and foundations, drainage and electrical conduits…. All are very necessary, but all of this work will pretty well never be seen again. We have this really neat chart called a Gantt Chart. It shows, in detail, EVERYTHING that has to be done to construct our building. Wes McClure of Garrett & Assoc, our general contractor, created and maintains this chart. Gantt charts are used in large, complex projects to make sure things run on schedule. It also shows detail of pieces that must be done before other pieces. It looks like we’re a little behind right now, but there are some activities coming up where we can likely pick up some time. As of now, we still anticipate substantial occupation of the office by this Christmas.

The second big pour went very well. It began about 4:30am and the last truck left about 2:15pm. All of the finishing work and the grooving wrapped up about 5:15pm. 250 cubic yards of concrete this time. This is what we call the main/front/guest parking area.

Also, our electrical contractor, Moody Phillips, has now completed the 900′ conduit runs from the building to the power source (on Paluxy) and the fiber data source. That now allows us to finish the mitigation dirt work where the original building was to be located (and will be in the future).

Lots of landscape work is going on as well. Mostly piping, drains, and forming of the dirt. There is a long list of things to be done before the first tree, plant or bush is placed in the ground. The landscape company (LandVistionsTx.com) is also responsible for and will be engineering the use of our 36,000 gal water cistern.

There is going to be an article coming out in a local magazine about smart ways to irrigate lawns and landscape. Our entire project will be one of the things featured. Briefly described— we have special storm water inlets at various places in the drives and parking areas. These inlets have an internal structure that filters our debris, and as much dirt as possible. It’s very much like a swimming pool filter. It needs to be cleaned when it gets loaded up. We understand that it will take work to do this, but the financial trade is using a LOT less water and thus lowering city water cost, as long as it rains! It also is way smarter for the environment. So what is the ROI for all this? That is to be determined. I don’t know. But I CAN say that for a ‘green’ office park, this was the RIGHT thing to do.

Storm Inlet Filter Bag

Next week, we should see another massive chunk of concrete formed, poured, and crafted. There will then be one more big pour for the site with a few minor concrete items.

The building itself– we have the construction permit, all contracts have gone out to the subcontractors, there will be a Phirst Building construction kickoff meeting next week, and THEN the air will be a-buzz! The plans show that the slab should be complete by May 30th and we are still on track to occupy the building just before Christmas, 2012.

Stay Tuned!

Here’s the Panorama:

It’s a bit distorted due to the stitching. But none the less, this is a large area of concrete to pour. The building will be in the upper right quadrant of the picture.

Lots more to come…

It was fun watching the concrete get poured. Becky Poe, our VP of Quality and testing loves to watch the coordination of all hands as the concrete goes into place and becomes the work of art that it is.  Here’s a few pictures of Becky ‘monitoring the pour for quality’

Becky Poe & Libby Fulgum (our site foreman for Garrett & Assoc., GC)

One final note- Today, April 13, 2012, we signed the loan documents for the construction of the building. We are officially kicking things in high gear! PTL!!

This is a cool panorama shot showing the large area that will have concrete. It is scheduled to be poured at 7am April 11, weather and logistics permitting.

And we are VERY proud to announce that Citizen’s First Bank here in Tyler is financing the construction and the mortgage on the project. Mr. Jim Wood, Mr. Randy Grooms and Mr. Jim Perkins have been a great help in all of this. If you know Jim Wood…. ask him about this journey. It’s a great story . I’ll write about it some day.

Oh, as Jim Nipp says… “HERE’S YOUR SIGN”!

Until next week!!

All of the main retaining walls are up and they look just the way I envisioned them. The first parking area was poured and has cured. The large grey construction trailer/office has been removed and replaced with a smaller one. The cameras have been moved. The building pad is complete (but rain keeps moving some of the dirt ). Just about all of the electrical conduit that needs to be in the ground is where it needs to be. All storm drains (with one small exception) are in place and ready for concrete. The ‘back parking lot’ is being prepped with forms and rebar:

Looks like the rain is done for a week or so, so work will move full steam!

I expect that the actual building contracts will be let in the next 2 weeks and work will begin on the building foundations, plumbing, and underground electrical VERY soon thereafter.

We had a site meeting today to cover many of the small details that seem to come up as a project comes together.  We brought landscaping, electrical and general contractor together. But of note for me were these images I captured of the boulders that are being used to form the retaining walls. Rocks ROCK!!!

I love the moss. After the rock is placed, this should naturally continue to grow. Our desire is to have the rock walls look as though they were always there. As if we unearthed them. We’ll also be adding several rock ‘outcroppings’ to add to the natural look.

We also have a LOT of site electrical work. This is just one bundle of conduits that are being installed in various parts of the site. Some for lighting, some to power pumps. Some are for data lines. We will have the ability to monitor and control a lot of things on this site. It adds up to a having a beautiful site that is lower cost to maintain and manage.

It looked like a hundred hard hat ants running around as I watched the cameras from the dry comfort of my office chair.  Our landscape contractor, LandVisions, was out in full force working on the footings for the rock retaining walls. The first load of the boulders and rock arrived as well. Here’s the sort-of-daily snapshot (click to make it full size):

As well, today was move day for Holly, our signature…. Holly Tree. Jan Roberts named her Holly. Holly is unique in that she is a female American Holly tree. When we did the original clearing of this area, we brought in a botanist (a tree guy) to advise us on dos and don’ts, keeps and recycles. When he saw Holly, he was VERY intrigued and highly suggested that we find a way to keep her, and maybe even make her a focal point of our project since we’re pushing green.  So, we moved holly once, to be right in front of our construction trailer so she could be watered and fed regularly.

But… it’s time to put Holly in her permanent place. We need to move the construction trailer because the front of our new Phirst building is… well… right where the trailer sits! So…. we moved Holly today.

Holly being Moved from her Temporary Home

Supervision by Libby & David

Holly's new home