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Spruce Up Your Business with a New Façade

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Don’t underestimate the power of a facelift. A new façade can quickly transform a commercial building, boosting its curb appeal and generating increased traffic and brand awareness. On top of that, a façade installation can provide many of the same benefits of a full-scale renovation or new construction at a fraction of the cost — and with far less inconvenience.

Fast & Friendly

New construction can take years to plan and complete. Full renovations may require excessive interruption of business and inconvenience customers and vendors. Façade improvements, on the other hand, can be wrapped up in a matter of weeks or months, and usually don’t impede operations or create barriers for foot traffic.

When completed, a new façade might include improved lighting, more visible signage, and pleasant landscaping. A stylish, modern look that’s legible from a distance encourages curiosity and invites more traffic than an outdated, rundown or generic exterior.

Façade projects are a good option in many different situations, whether it’s a new business moving into its first space or an existing business rebranding, relocating or opening a new location. Any company that wants to quickly freshen up its appearance and attract new attention can consider a façade improvement as an effective, affordable option.

Save Energy (and Money)

Before dismissing façade upgrades as purely cosmetic, think about the potential energy savings. Many older buildings lose heat in the winter and cool air during the summer through uninsulated storefronts and old, drafty windows and doors. Insulation, new energy-efficient building materials and energy-saving windows and doors can improve indoor comforts and help reduce utility costs for years to come.

Leon Williams Contractors is a Maryville construction firm with decades of experience working closely with business owners to ensure the best possible results for their commercial projects. We can assist you in assessing your company’s needs and work with you to create the right solution. To learn more about façade improvements or other renovation and construction options, contact us today.

Etowah City Hall

Looking Back at the Accomplishments of 2020

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This has been a challenging year in East Tennessee, but Leon Williams Contractors has been proud to continue helping our clients create new and renovated spaces.Etowah City Hall

Etowah City Hall

After beginning work in late 2019, Leon Williams Contractors completed construction on a new 3,200-square-foot city hall in Etowah, Tennessee. The new Etowah City Hall is the city’s new permanent dedicated building for municipal government. The new one-story structure complements the historic L&N Depot, which was extensively renovated in 2012. The depot currently houses a railroad museum, the Etowah Chamber of Commerce, and serves as a facility for public and private events.

Benchmark Physical Therapy

Leon Williams completed the new Benchmark Physical Therapy location in Maryville in July. “We were thrilled with the work done by Leon Williams Contractors,” said Jason Hutcherson, Benchmark Physical Therapy facilities director. “They brought our project in on budget, ahead of time, and with a great final product. Their communication and professionalism is above board and they went above and beyond to make sure our move was a success. I will certainly use them again for projects in the area.”

So Many Projects

During the past year, our Maryville construction experts have worked on a variety of great projects around East Tennessee including:

  • The Donut Shop, renovating the flat iron building across from Regions Bank in Knoxville’s Fourth & Gill neighborhood.
  • Renovations for the Blount County Landfill Office.
  • Shift Church Knoxville opened in its new facility on Alcoa Highway.
  • Repair of damages at Everett Hills Baptist Church and Pecks Memorial Church in Blount County and working to help develop upcoming projects for several other area churches.
  • Construction began on the TLC Maryville facility, which is expected to open early 2021.
  • The new Freshens located inside Lupton Hall at the University of Tennessee Chattanooga.
  • Various trade work on Pellissippi State Community College’s new Multi-Purpose Building at the Hardin Valley campus, the new classroom Building for TCAT Morristown and the new Anderson County Higher Education Center for TCAT.

As your Maryville construction expert, we always love to assist our East Tennessee clients with their building projects. If you’ve seen our work and want to talk about your construction need for 2021, we’d love to talk. Contact Leon Williams Contractors today.

Foothills Church

Giving Your Old Sanctuary a New Lease on Life

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In the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, East Tennessee’s churches have continued to share the light with their communities, even if it’s been online or by video conferencing. But as social distancing requirements fade away, churches will become places of fellowship once again.Foothills Church

All that said, the economic effects of the pandemic might hang around for some time, so when church facilities start showing their age, new construction might not be financially feasible for cash-strapped congregations. That’s where Leon Williams Contractors, a Maryville construction company, can help.

We have decades of experience renovating church facilities. Through preconstruction planning, our experts can help congregations understand their facility needs and what sort of renovations are within their budgets.

Helping Out

Our goal is assisting our faith-based clients in finding the sweet spot between expense and value. We offer pre-construction consultations, site assessments, value engineering and other services to help congregations mitigate costs. Working closely with a design team, our hands-on experts will find and implement the most cost-effective solutions to meet the needs of growing congregations through internal renovations or expanding existing facilities. The Leon Williams team will work closely with the project designer and all stakeholders to ensure smooth communication and no surprises.

The purpose of value engineering is to approach every project with a fresh eye to evaluate the use of materials, reduce waste and avoid excessive expenditures. This could involve swapping out fixtures or features that might result in added costs with little to no benefit.

Communities of faith matter to us here at Leon Williams Contractors. We take pride in helping give congregations the facilities they need to thrive and grow. To learn how we can assist in your next church renovation or construction project, visit www.lwcontractorstn.com or call (865) 982-1734.

 

Design-Build Communication Advantages

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The success of commercial construction projects depends on teamwork and the ability of all the parties involved to cooperate and communicate. This doesn’t always happen.

In traditional commercial construction projects, a developer starts by hiring an engineer or architect to design a facility, and then puts it out to bid to find a contractor to build it. This model often leads to confrontational projects. If something goes wrong, the designer and contractor can end up trying to blame each other. If the plans are missing details or information, the contractor can request additional funds and/or time in order provide the additional work. Often the contractor is forced to play this game in order to have a competitive edge against other bidding contractors.

What is Design-Build Construction?

There is another way. Commercial developers can enlist the help of a design-build construction team — meaning a construction firm works with a designer from the start of the project. As Design-Build Institute of America notes, the design-build model can allow for a more streamlined, efficient 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. While single-source contracting is the fundamental difference between design-build and the old ways, equally important is the culture of collaboration inherent in design-build.

Improved Teamwork and Communication

At Leon Williams Contractors, we’ve found that a design-build construction approach offers significant advantages to our clients in East Tennessee. It allows for a higher level of cooperation and coordination between the contractor and the designer.

A design-build construction team can make better, more informed decisions, improve the efficiency of work that needs to be done — and minimize the paperwork, delays, and cost of fixing problems that can result from coordination problems between two companies.

We have decades of design-build construction experience in East Tennessee. If you want to learn more about the advantages of partnering with a design-build construction team, contact Leon Williams Contractors today.

Giving It the Old College Try

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Leon Williams brings years of construction experience to campus projects

Across the nation, construction on campuses is booming as colleges and universities replace aging facilities built in the 1960s. In addition, administrators are building new facilities with recruitment in mind, designing them to cater to the desires and interests of younger generations.

Campus Construction Experience

When it comes to building and renovating facilities on college campuses, it pays to utilize a contractor with proven educational facility expertise. Leon Williams Contractors has been specializing in educational facility construction for decades, including dozens of projects for the University of Tennessee system.

UTC Crossroads Dining Hall.

Most recently, in August 2018, we completed two projects at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, including the renovation of the 13,000-square-foot UTC Crossroads Dining Hall. We replaced all the furniture, food stations and fixtures in the facility, adding a Mongolian grill concept and sushi machine.

We also built out facilities for three new dining options inside UTC’s new West Campus Housing building: Einstein Bros.® Bagels, Dippers southern fried and grilled chicken, and a Provisions on Demand (P.O.D.) quick-serve store.

In 2017, Leon Williams Contractors completed its 22nd project on the University of Tennessee at Knoxville campus, renovating and remodeling of the Thompson-Boling Arena dining area. The remodel included a new Which Wich, Bento Sushi, Grab n Go salads and sandwiches and the Southern Kitchen hot line.

Construction Expertise

What value can Leon Williams Contractors bring to your educational facility and other construction projects? Our experts work closely with the design team to budget and then refine the plans for the facility renovation or construction. We are widely experienced in multiple construction sectors, including campus projects, church facilities, medical facilities, restaurants, and retail and office space.

As an East Tennessee value-engineering expert, our firm provides a complete range of services including pre-construction consultation, site assessment, design-build expertise and construction management in the greater Knoxville area and beyond.

We’re ready to work with higher education institutions to provide the very best facilities for their students. Contact Leon Williams Contractors to find out more.