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Advantages of Design-Build Construction for Your Project

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What’s the not-so-secret recipe for successfully completing construction projects on time and under budget? That would be teamwork, plain and simple.

Teamwork in integral to the design-build construction services that we offer at Leon Williams Contractors, your Maryville construction expert. This involves a collaborative approach where our team works hand-in-hand with an outside design firm from the start of a project.

The Design-Build Institute of America describes the design-build model as an effective way to streamline the construction process:

The owner manages only one contract with a single point of responsibility. The designer and contractor work together from the beginning, as a team, providing unified project recommendations to fit the owner’s schedule and budget. Any changes are addressed by the entire team, leading to collaborative problem-solving and innovation, not excuses or blame-shifting.

This approach allows for increased cooperation and coordination as the project proceeds — minimizing delays, reducing costs and mistakes, and reducing paperwork. We’ve put the approach to work for many clients throughout East Tennessee.

Not every contractor is suited to provide construction design-build services. It requires a team-oriented mindset. At Leon Williams, we believe the foundation of a successful project is reliable communication and attentive on-site management.

This carries over into our day-to-day operations throughout the lifespan of a project — from site design and to carrying out the final punch list, we listen, respond to concerns, and help solve problems before they because costly issues. A project isn’t complete until we’ve met all the expectations of the project owner.

If you’re interested in learning how our design-build construction services could benefit your next project, contact Leon Williams Contractors today.

 

Offset rising material costs with this advice.

3 Strategies to Offset Rising Material Costs

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Construction material prices have been volatile in recent years, but they continue to rise overall. Combined with economic uncertainty related to tariffs, it can be a challenging time for the construction industry.

Along with increasing materials prices, delays and mishaps can drive construction project costs past the initial budget. To combat these issues, Leon Williams Contractors has put strategies in place to help offset unpredictable costs and deliver more value to our clients.

Build for the Site

Successful builders create structures that work with the sites they’re on, rather than fighting against them. By assessing every site for compatibility with the structures our clients want to build, we ensure parking, traffic flow, even noise and light pollution don’t interfere with local infrastructure and existing development. Choosing the right site, using the right materials, and clearing up any potential issues with environmental and geotechnical hazards before starting construction can save thousands in engineering and remediation costs later.

Design for Efficiency

Leon Williams Contractors also offers design-build construction services, which can save clients a lot of money on materials over the course of a project. A design-build construction team can make more informed decisions about materials and reduce waste compared to traditional building. When clients aren’t paying for excessive material waste, especially the kind incurred when solving construction mistakes, material costs overall can be significantly reduced.

Engineer for Value

When clients begin a renovation or new construction, they stake a lot of their own money, and the money of their investors, on the success of the project. Difficult designs that rely on expensive or complex materials can be a major financial headache. Leon Williams Contractors uses value engineering techniques to give clients an honest appraisal of the value and longevity of every solution we provide, allowing them to save money without sacrificing quality.

If you want to avoid the pain of rising materials costs, we can help. Contact Leon Williams Contractors today to learn more.

Design Build construction offers many benefits over the traditional method.

How Design-Build Construction Can Improve Any Project

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For today’s commercial developers, the choice between using design-build construction services or using traditional methods can make or break a project.

Historically, architects and designers have been siloed in the industry, designing projects for their clients but often having very little say or supervision in their construction. The task of turning drawings and plans into real spaces has fallen squarely to the contractor, who is responsible for the interpretation of the technical plans, changing, tweaking and modifying them as necessary to deliver a finished product.

While this method has its advantages it also carries a higher risk of mistakes and disagreements among the designer, contractor and client.

Advantages of Design-Build Construction

Luckily, there’s a better way forward. Design-build construction represents a premium model for commercial construction. By letting designers and contractors collaborate from the start, projects can often be finished on time and on budget, with fewer costlier delays and overruns.

Design-build construction uses coordination from the start of the process to make better, more informed decisions as the work progresses. This relationship between the designer and builder makes projects more efficient by minimizing paperwork, delays and the time it takes to fix problems with intermittent communication.

But what if your project doesn’t require a complex new building, but instead just involves redesigning an existing space? Here, too, design-build makes sense. By planning all parts of the project up front, even jobs as simple as a restaurant renovation can be improved. A focus on collaboration eliminates delays arising from slow back-and-forth communication between independent designers and contractors. If design changes are necessary, the entire project team can be updated immediately.

We Can Help

Overall, the largest benefit of a design-build process is efficiency, and that benefits every job, not just the big ones. As a design-build construction firm, we offer more efficient and effective construction processes, saving our clients from the added expense of delays and budget mistakes. If you’re interested in working with us on your next project, contact Leon Williams Contractors today.

Designing the Right Site in the Right Way

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Finding the right site for a new commercial facility can be hard enough, but businesses also have to worry about finding the right design. It takes planning to ensure sites are designed to properly accommodate customers while eliminating or minimizing nuisance problems for adjoining properties.

Site Assessment

Leon Williams Contractors offers preplanning and site assessment services to help businesses find the perfect sites for new facilities. This helps protect our clients from unpleasant surprises like insufficient utilities, environmental hazards, and geotechnical issues.

We can also help determine if the proposed site is large enough to accommodate the facility. There are many factors that need to be taken into account, including required setbacks, green space requirements, adequate parking, and various buffer zones.

Location is important, too. If you’re interested in building a retail location, is there enough traffic to justify it? Is the property sufficiently accessible? If it’s hard for drivers to get into or out of the property, it will cut into your sales.

Be a Good Neighbor

Once a site is selected, the design needs to balance convenience for patrons and visitors while minimizing any potential nuisance problems for neighboring properties or nearby residential areas. Adequate parking and traffic flow are vital. The design of the site should factor in ways to reduce noise and light pollution from the property, preventing community complaints.

We Can Help

The team at Leon Williams Contractors has decades of experience in commercial construction project management. We can help your company find the best site that is built out in the best way. Our proven design-build construction expertise has been put to work in commercial projects all around East Tennessee.

We’re ready help build the best commercial facility for your business. Let us help. Contact Leon Williams Contractors to find out more.