Our design-build process leads to health facilities that soothe and cure

Even in relatively benign settings, health care consumers can be frightened and homesick. Leon Williams Contractors can make sure your clinic renovation or constructionis patient-centered and puts them at ease. Design, colors and flow plans are all important aspects of healthcare facility design.

Here are some things to keep in mind as we lead your design-build process for Knoxville-area medical facilities.

1. Facetime is key.All health care facilities should be designed in such a way that doctors, patients, advocates and family members can interact in a comfortable setting. This can ease anxiety and empower patients to participate in their health care outcomes.
2. Streamline spaces.We can help ensure your medical facility — ranging from eye clinics to dental clinics and primary-care offices — has ample storage to reduce clutter. Square footage is at a premium, so it’s important to accommodate space for medical devices and equipment. Streamlining your space puts patients even more at ease. Medical equipment should have a home to avoid being a distraction or cluttering up free space.
3. Make it personal.Generic, clinical and antiseptic medical spaces can increase stress. Allow patients and family members to personalize their space with ample room for books, clothes, personal effects and ports for tablets and smartphones. Consider speakers so patients can stream their favorite music while waiting for or undergoing a procedure.
4. Bring family together.Make sure waiting rooms have ample space for families, and consider offering a portioned space for private discussion. Make a space for water coffee and snacks.
5. Colors count.Choose hues with care. You don’t want a patient facing a stark or overly bright wall. Facilities that cater to children should offer more varied and brighter colors. Various shades of blue can be calming. Artwork can also add great accents, but choose accordingly for the context.

If you are a healthcare provider, your primary concern should be providing your patients the highest level of care. Our health facility design-build process can help guide you to the perfect ambiance and environment for doing so. Contact usfor more information.

Restaurant design changes as East Tennessee appetites persist

Americans love to eat. They especially love eating at restaurants. Americans now spend more money each year dining out than they do preparing their own meals at home.

This provides a wealth of opportunities in the Knoxville area – for food suppliers, beverage companies and restaurateurs big and small. It creates opportunities for Leon Williams Contractors, too. Our restaurant design-build serviceshave been used by franchises and for higher-end independent restaurants, too. But whether you are a franchise operator or building the private restaurant of your dreams, you need to stay on top of ever-changing American dining habits and demands. Now that 2018 is halfway done, here’s a quick look at four restaurant trends that will likely drive design-build approaches. Some may be fleeting, but some are likely here to stay.

Pickup and delivery:It can be an annoyance when circling a packed parking lot to see spots reserved for “pick-up” customers. But those customers are becoming the lifeblood of an industry eager to keep pace with burgeoning meal-delivery services. Restaurant designs will increasingly add parking and integrate more pickup stations, to serve both third-party delivery companies as well as those who want to pop in and out with a full meal to take home.

Noise reduction:Decibel readings at some restaurantsactually enter the harmful range, and it’s a common complaint YOU HAVE TO YELL AT YOUR DINING COMPANIONS to engage in even sporadic conversation. Add a mediocre jazz trio, and you might as well resort to sign language or semaphore. The reasons vary, as do the solutions. In a move toward sleeker restaurants, designers have axed drapes, luxurious upholsteries and carpeting that used to absorb sound. Tile, steel and blonde wood, not so much. As the problem persists, expect restaurant design to include softer wall coverings, acoustical tile and carpets.

Local, local, local:Be it in appearance or on the menu, diners want a reflection of their local culture and cuisine in their favorite eateries. We’re not talking about country kitsch-laden walls a la Cracker Barrel. We mean more along the lines of repurposed native wood, or displays by local artists or photographers. Budding restaurateurs may consider display cases of local products offered on the menu: Think Benton’s bacon, Blackberry Farm baguettes, or local honey. People want to feel a local connection to their food.

Tabletop payment:More restaurants are going to try to more subtly incorporate those tabletop terminals into their décor. They are rather cumbersome to some diners, but many appreciate there is no need to give up their credit card to a stranger for five minutes. They can also be used to distract kids with games and leave reviews, and as a glance at any Yelp account will show, people love to leave reviews. Almost as much as they enjoy dining out.

Ultimately, you decide how you want your restaurant to sound, feel and operate. We can guide, and be guided, every step of the way. Contact Leon Williams Contractorstoday for the best restaurant design-build options in East Tennessee.

The college lunch lady is long gone, but students are eating better than ever

Long-gone are the days of the college-level lunch lady, passing out portions on a cafeteria plate.

Forget the meat-and-threes and fish Fridays on college campuses. College students today want choices, choices and more choices. And they love their tried-and-true brands like Chick-Fil-A, Starbucks and Einstein Bros. Bagels. We have built those and more – Subway, Pizza Hut, and Dunkin’ Donuts among them – on the University of Tennessee at Knoxville campus.

Our design-build firm has also built numerous restaurants on the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga campus and are commencing a project that will bring a Dippers, Einstein Bros. Bagels and a Provisions on Demand (P.O.D.) convenience store to a new dormitory complex.

We know what Vols and Mocs want, and we know how to build their favorite franchises. We also keep on top of campus dining trends to make sure we are ready to roll with any new concepts or opportunities that might come our way.

Here are five things to consider about college campus dining these days:

1. Options.Prospective students will take available food and dining options into account when deciding on a college. Thus the drive to transform and improve campus food options across the country.
2. Customization.Food allergies are on the rise and college kids want to customize their orders because of health or dietary concerns, explaining the lure of pizza places and sandwich shops with customizable options.
3. Demand.Food services directors take feedback seriously, and their restaurant selections will reflect demand. That may explain the meteoric rise of franchises like Starbucks and fast-food restaurants.
4. Grab and go.College life can be demanding and hectic, and students avoiding fast food still want to pop in and out of a place with a banana and juice or a coffee and muffin. Premade food options are in demand, and explain the prevalence of convenience-type stores like Provisions on Demand.
5. Cost.Traditional meal plans at colleges cost thousands of dollars a year, offering limited hours and heavy and hearty choices. College students these days want to set their own budgets and want access to lighter fare. Why wade through a cafeteria line when all you want is a bagel or simple sandwich?

Of course, trends come and go, but it’s likely the dining options we provide on campuses will be in demand for quite some time. We’ll be listening and keeping up with the food trends, and likely won’t rue the loss of the lunch line, and lunch lady, anytime soon.

See a sampling of our college dining work here, and contactus for more information on our campus design-build solutions.

We can navigate the complications and variables of where to locate your business

When it comes time to choosing a site for your East Tennessee or Knoxville-area restaurant, retail shop, clinic or church, we are sure you are aware of the “three Ls:” Location, location, location.

While this is a prime and obvious consideration for virtually any new commercial construction, there are other things to take into consideration before committing to a project location, including building size, visibility, taxes, site access and parking.

Leon Williams Contractors’ preplanning and consultation services and design-build approachcan limit the headaches involved for business owners wanting to construct a new business or expand an existing one. Here are five things we keep in mind.

1. Building size:Is the site large enough to accommodate your building? It could appear so, but you must take into account other needs, including parking, storm water detention, required setbacks, buffers, signage, and other features such as a deck or patio.
2. Visibility:This is obviously a function of location, but is not necessarily based on how much vehicular traffic passes by the site. Pedestrian traffic is a factor, too. There are location analyses available, but one surprising rule of thumb is to locate near competitors. This means there’s an established pattern of people coming to the area for a similar service.
3. Soil and Environmental:Many sites may appear to be a great spot for your new business, but what is not as evident is what could be underground.  Sites can have environmental issues that may require remediation such as contaminants in the soil or hazardous materials in existing buildings. Other concealed concerns with sites can be soils that are unsuitable for typical foundations, sink holes, and bedrock.
4. Site access:Just because a business is sited next to a busy roadway doesn’t mean automatic big paydays. If ingress or egress to your location is difficult, that could sink sales quickly. Avoid complicated intersections or sites from where it’s difficult to make a left turn or otherwise enter the roadway. Depending on the road classification, proximity to intersections, and other governing requirements, the number of access points may be limited. Limited access can cause problems with deliveries, drive-thru queuing, and general circulation on the site.
5. Parking:Many municipalities have formulas of varying complexity determining how much parking must be provided for various types of businesses or services (for instance, one parking spot per 200 square feet of retail building). There are also ADA requirements to keep in mind for handicapped parking, and some local governments even require landscaped medians and a set number of trees. The rules can get even more complicated if municipalities govern or limit the extent of impervious surfaces.

Building and opening a new office or shop entails much more than hanging a shingle and opening your doors. Site selection is but one step in the complicated journey toward planning and opening a new business. Our construction preplanning servicesand design-build approach can streamline the process so you can get on with the business of raising your profile and running your business.

We have ways to avoid common construction delays

 

As sure as the sun will rise, weather is a No. 1 schedule-killer in the construction industry.

Utilizing the services of a design-buildfirm can certainly help bank project time on the front end. Our preconstruction planning and careful client consultation allows us to commence work quickly, order materials up front and plan ahead for any expected delays because of inclement weather in Knoxville or elsewhere in East Tennessee.

But then there’s the weather, and there’s not much anyone can do about it. However there are some processes in place that can limit the weather delays that commonly prevent construction projects from coming in on time and on budget. Here are some ways we ensure that weather delays are kept at a minimum on our projects, saving our client’s money and getting the job done on time:

1. Understand the climate.There is a difference between climate and weather, yes, but weather trends help dictate climate. In East Tennessee, fall is typically the driest season of the year. This provides a good window for work such as grading and site preparation, but comes just ahead of the coldest time of year.
2. Schedule wisely.March is known as a windy month, so it doesn’t always make sense to schedule projects such as roofing or framing during that period. Winter, which can be cold and rainy in East Tennessee, might be a good time for interior work if the building under construction is sufficiently sealed against the elements.
3. Protect employees.In the summer, work days can start early, especially during the peak hot-weather months. Daily high temperatures typically occur around 3 or 4 p.m., so it’s wise to get workers off the site by then. This will avoid heat-related injuries that could set projects back even more if you have to replace stricken employees.
4. Make hay while the sun shines.As the old saying suggests, it makes sense to accelerate work when conditions are most favorable or poor weather is on the horizon.
5. Site preparation.It’s good practice to make sure a period of heavy rain won’t wash out erosion- control measures, flood the site or damage project roadways or walkways. This means keeping an eye on the weather and taking appropriate precautions ahead of time. Having to repair storm damage to a site only makes a weather delay all the longer.

 

Be it heat, cold, sleet, snow or rain, we’ll finish your design-build project as quickly as possible, regardless of what Mother Nature has to say.

 

Contact us todayfor more information on our design-build services in Knoxville, Maryville and throughout East Tennessee.