Be it urgent care or a full doctor’s office, we keep patients in mind

By some counts, there are nearly 11,000 urgent-care and retail medical clinics in the U.S.

The reasons for their proliferation are manifold, but most patients cite convenience, better accessibility and lower relative costs for care. Most doctors agree such clinics are largely acceptable for urgent services such as colds and flu or routine services such as blood tests, but the clinics should not be considered primary-care centers. Regular medical checkups are best handled by your personal physician to ensure continuity of care. And of course, if you just cut your fingers off with a table saw, you want to head straight for the emergency room.

While convenient and cost-effective, retail clinics and walk-in medical providers are very utilitarian in nature. That means they probably lack design features customary in some health care settings to put patients more at ease and reduce the cold, clinical feel of a medical environment.

Leon Williams Contractors has designed and built medical facilitiesfor years. We can put our design-build expertise to work on a new eye clinic, dentist office or even urgent-care center. But we will never scrimp on design and appearance. That’s one benefit to our design-build system: Clients can engage early and often to ensure the design of their medical facility is exactly what they want.

Here are a few things we will keep in mind when envisioning, and ultimately building your medical facility, in Knoxville, Maryville or beyond:

• Tech-savvy. Technology is a major driver in medical facility design. Some technology components, such as check-in kiosks, should definitely be accounted for at the design stage. Some medical facilities even incorporate pneumatic tubes to more quickly move lab results around a building.
• Room to grow.Allow for expansion and reorientation. Given the vast changes in the way health care is provided, we can ensure your design allows for reconfiguration if another doctor joins the practice or new services are offered.
• Let in the light.Research indicates patient outcomes improve when medical facilities are well-lighted via sunlight. Our experts can ensure your design includes ample light and other features, including color choice, so your patients are relaxed and receptive when their name is called for care.
• Meet halfway.Some medical facilities overdo it with fancy and redundant accoutrements that can drive up prices. We can help ensure your facility is attractive and aesthetically pleasing without becoming too showy.

There are enough patients to go around, and there’s a reason for the explosive growth of urgent-care centers and walk-in retail clinics. But whether you are an eye doctor, dentist or physician wanting to build or expand a “traditional” medical facility, we will bring decades of expertise. Our design-build process can accelerate you toward your ultimate goal: Offering the best care and service to your patients.

Contact us todayfor more information about medical facility design trends or to discuss your doctor’s office design-build options.

Leon Williams Contractors can help retailers navigate changing consumer landscape

 

There’s so much bad press about the future of brick-and-mortar retail lately, it’s as if we’re all going to revert to a hunter-gatherer society with occasional drone deliveries to our crude shelters.

Leon Williams Contractors – a leading design-build firm specializing in franchise, medical facility and church construction — has no shortage of robust retail projectsin the Knoxville area, make no mistake. But we are not blind to the fact traditional models of retail are undergoing substantial change, thanks in large part to the proliferation of online shopping and home-delivery systems.

While multiple industries, including journalism, department stores and network television, have indeed seen some dramatic shifts courtesy of the digital revolution, all is not lost – at all. Some evolution is in order in the retail industry, that is true, but here are some ways to stanch the bleeding of traditional retail storefronts:

-Make your brand stand for something. Millennials, a future gold mine of a generation increasingly coming into its own in terms of buying power and wealth, don’t just want to buy a new button-down Oxford. They want to support brands like REI that have core values like conservation and philanthropy. This is where robust social media comes into play: Trumpet your values to stand apart and ultimately bring traffic into your store.

-Position yourself. Some feel the future of retail lies in its presence in mixed-use developments that are anchored by establishments and services that won’t likely fade from fashion any time soon. Think fitness centers, restaurants and movie theaters. Many developments are even incorporating the ultimate destination place into their layouts: Residential units or houses. They represent a literally captive customer base.

-Engage the community. Incorporate meeting spaces into your store, and offer classes or lessons that coincide with your brands and products. Own a clothing store? Consider seasonal fashion shows that have a charitable component. Own a restaurant? Offer cooking classes that feature your signature dishes.

-Unleash your employees. Happy employees can be your best brand ambassadors. Encourage them to tout your store, its values and offerings on social media. Make sure they exercise common sense, of course, and you want to have a solid social-media policy in place, but the buzz for virtually all brands now begins in the digital sphere. The risk of a rogue employee is outweighed by the weight people give to online engagement.

Traditional storefronts are rapidly entering the evolve-or-die reality of modern consumerism. There will always be a place for hands-on commerce in our economy, but it’s time to start thinking outside the big box.

As an East Tennessee design-build firmwith endless creative contacts, Leon Williams Contractors can help you do that.

 

Leon Williams Contractors offers a design-build solution to Knoxville-area church construction

There are some potential pitfalls and challenges, but Leon Williams Contractors can help ensure construction of a new worship facility goes as smoothly as possible.

Most churches encounter cost-overruns the congregation is unprepared – or unable – to cover. That’s why working with a design-build firmcan ensure your project comes in on time and under budget. At Leon Williams Contractors, we’ve been building houses of worship in the Maryville and Knoxville areasfor years and we subscribe to the design-build process because of its ability to keep costs in check and produce the facility that is right for the needs of your church and congregation.

Here’s a quick look at common challenges associated with church construction:

Planning and design

Make sure your church planning committee has a good idea of what purposes and needs the new church will meet. You should also know your budget constraints and commit to staying within those guidelines. We can help with this process on the front end to help mold the design to meet both the program and budget.

Cost

Churches typically pay for construction costs through money on-hand; capital fundraising; and traditional borrowing. Needless to say, failure to remain within the financing footprint can wreak havoc on an entire ministry and threaten the very future viability of a congregation. Make sure “soft” costs –such as fees, permits, furnishings, audio, video, lighting, signage – beyond the scope of the building contract are kept in mind.

Contracting

This step is key to locking in a cost and reducing financial risk. Your congregation or diocese should make sure you have a qualified representative in place to negotiate and set terms on your behalf. One advantage to a design-build firm is the streamlining of negotiations. At Leon Williams Contractors, we can contract the designer of the project and walk thru the process as your representative. We also have decades of experiences building houses of worship, and understand and can anticipate the needs and challenges that may arise.

Variables

The cost per square foot of church construction hinges on a range of factors, including location, size, style, and volume. The site of the church can have a big impact on cost, depending on the amount of necessary site preparation, including ease of excavation and utility infrastructure needs. Site preparation can be a big determining factor in the ultimate cost of your worship facility. Ensure your budgeting is liberal to avoid potentially devastating cost overruns. Site assessment is a primary part of our pre-construction consultation.

Master plan

Make sure your church has a master plan – and make sure the project falls within the master plan. The plan should entail midrange and long-range visions for your congregation and its mission. It’s important to ensure your ultimate building plans fall within this master plan.

Building a new worship facility – or expanding an existing one – may seem like a daunting proposition, but Leon Williams Contractors, which has built more than a dozen worship facilities in the Knoxville area, can ensure it blossoms.

If you or your congregation is interested in learning more about how design-build construction can more efficiently and effectively manage costs and deadlines for your new church or expansion, give us a call at 865-982-1734 or fill out our contact formtoday.

 

 

 

More Americans than ever are dining out, and comfort food is a big draw. People want food that harkens back to their childhood, like meat loaf, chicken and dumplings, and pot pie.

Your grandmother made a lot of her best dinners from scratch, but she likely still found ways to cut costs and increase efficiencies without sacrificing flavor or quality.

The same thing can be said of building a restaurant from scratch: A good design-build firm can reduce costs and add value without sacrificing the quality and draw of your new restaurant.

The Leon Williams team has helped design and build multiple restaurantsin Maryville and throughout the Knoxville area, ranging from franchise sites to original casual concepts.

Having a single contractor that handles both the design and actual construction offers numerous – and cost-saving – benefits, so you can focus on achieving your culinary dreams.

Here are five ways the design-buildapproach of the Leon Williams team can cut costs and not quality:

1. We can leverage our resources to obtain all permits, submit site plans and receive municipal approvals while you can focus on staffing, eventual inventory and furnishings.
2. We will work with our pre-qualified subcontractors and vendors to provide a high quality job completed on time and on budget.
3. We can again leverage our contacts to streamline purchase orders, so you can occupy yourself with the menu instead of your restaurant’s mechanics. We can also help prospective restaurateurs with practical, cost-saving advice on elements ranging from flooring types to ceilings.
4. The time saved using the stream-lined design-build approach means you can open your restaurant or franchise more quickly – leading to faster opening days, which ultimately means more revenue.
5. We have vast experience in the restaurant construction realm, so we are already familiar with frequent challenges or potential pitfalls that come with building and opening a new eatery.

 

It might seem that leaving both the design and construction in the hands of one project manager might cut you out of the loop, but according to testimonialsfrom our customers, rest assured your concerns will be heard, your ideas will be welcome, and your dream of restaurant ownership will come true.

 

For more information on how we can assist you with your restaurant construction, contact the team at Leon Williams Contractors today to learn how our knowledge and expertise can be used to your advantage.