CU, Kickapoo team take home construction honors

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CU, Kickapoo team take home construction honors

Buxton Kubik Dodd Creative principal Jon Dodd speaks on behalf of The Design Team of the Year.

Emily Letterman via SBJ

Projects multiple years in the making garnered top awards during last night’s 2016 Salute to Design and Construction banquet at the Ramada Plaza Hotel & Oasis Convention Center.

City Utilities took home the night’s top honor as Developer of the Year from the Springfield Contractors Association for the new bus transfer station on Main Street. The crews behind Phase II of Springfield Public Schools’ $10.2 million Kickapoo High School renovation received the night’s other top honor as Project Team of the Year.

The Salute to Construction council also presented five inaugural lifetime achievement honors to longstanding members of the design and construction industry. Awards were presented to Bill Adams, Elise Crain, Jack Hood, Ralph Manley and Windsor Warren. 

“Thank you for remembering me. People think I’m dead,” said Warren, president of Warren & Goodin PC, to great laughter and applause. 
 
CU’s downtown transit facility was designed to accommodate a larger fleet of buses and eliminate pedestrian crossings in front of drivers. H Design Group LLC designed and DeWitt & Associates Inc. constructed the 5,859-square-foot center at the 2.7-acre site at 211 N. Main Ave., which was built at a cost of $4.4 million. 

“This really was a team effort, from the (Federal Transit Administration) to the city’s streetscape work,” said Chris Haller, manager of facilities management for City Utilities. 

The former McDaniel Street and Patton Avenue center had been in use for nearly 30 years and the FTA contributed $3.6 million to the project since a replacement site was sought, beginning in 2006, according to Springfield Business Journal archives. 

The team of DeWitt & Associates, Buxton Kubik Dodd Creative, Toth and Associates Inc. and Malone Finkle Eckhardt & Collins Inc. were behind the Kickapoo project, which added an east entrance and 900-plus seat auditorium. 

“I like to joke that I got to play the ultimate senior prank,” said Jon Dodd, principal with Buxton Kubik Dodd Creative. “I got to tear down half of my own high school.”

Other honorees of the night were A & M Crete Inc. co-owners Kevin Scheer and Micah Stowe, who were named Craftsmen of the Year from the American Institute of Architects for Kickapoo floor installation. AIA Superintendent of the Year honors went to Dewitt & Associates’ J.D. Anthony and Alan Essary for the O’Reilly Clinical Health Science Center at Missouri State University.

The Southwest Missouri Chapter of the National Association of Women in Construction also honored a female in the trade. Debi Murray with Murney Associates, Realtors took home the Vesta honor, given to a woman with over 10 years of construction experience. 

The 2016 ceremony was organized by the Salute to Design and Construction Council, which represents 23 organizations including the Springfield Contractors Association, Home Builders Association of Greater Springfield, the Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce, the AIA, NAWIC and several unions.

Reporter Jana Bounds contributed to this story.

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Vital Farms

Texas company breaks ground on first Mo. plant

Vital Farms and local officials break ground on the egg-processing plant expected to support 50 jobs in the first year of operation.

Zach Smith, Reporter, Springfield Business Journal
9/28/2016 10:27 AM

The project architect is Buxton Kubik Dodd Creative, and Branco Enterprises Inc. will serve as on-site construction manager.

Austin, Texas-based Vital Farms may not be putting all of its eggs in one basket, but it plans on putting a lot of them in a new processing plant planned at Partnership Industrial Center West.

Company officials along with representatives from the Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce and Springfield Business Development Corp. held a groundbreaking ceremony this morning at the site of the planned 82,140-square-foot egg-processing plant. Located on 11 acres at the corner of North Alliance Avenue and Production Street in PIC West, the plant will be the company’s first in Missouri, as well as the first of its kind for Vital Farms, said President and Chief Operations Officer Russell Diez-Canseco.

“We’ve operated our own much smaller plants, and currently we rely on other companies to co-pack for us,” said Diez-Canseco, noting Mid-States Specialty Eggs serves in that capacity from a facility in Sedalia. “We’re excited to bring that in and do it ourselves in a full-scale plant.”

The plant would serve as a processing facility for the company’s supply chain of 100 farmers who provide eggs from pasture-raised hens, involving grading, quality inspection, sorting, packing and transportation of the eggs to over 6,000 U.S. grocery stores, including The Fresh Market, Whole Foods Market, Target and Kroger.

Company officials declined to disclose the planned investment for the Springfield facility, which has an estimated completion date of September 2017. The project architect is Buxton Kubik Dodd Creative, and Branco Enterprises Inc. will serve as on-site construction manager.

“We project that by the end of the first year we’ll have created more than 50 full-time jobs with benefits,” Diez-Canseco said, adding about 40 positions would be related to production with about 10 employees performing management and analytical support duties.

It’s not the company’s first look at southwest Missouri.

The groundbreaking ceremony comes roughly nine months after the Austin American-Statesman reported the company had selected a site in Joplin for a planned 65,000-square-foot, $11.5 million plant. The company chose Springfield, Diez-Canseco said, after evaluating other sites in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Missouri, and meeting with members of Springfield’s business community in January.

“When we first met, they brought an entire team of people from the chamber, the city, the utility district and we felt really overwhelmed by the amount of support,” Diez-Canseco said. “We were convinced we could make things happen quickly.”

Diez-Canseco also pointed to Springfield-Branson National Airport as a deciding factor.

"One of the things that was helpful to come to Springfield was the number of flights," he said. "Joplin, at the time, was at two and Springfield was at 40. It's easier to get in and out of."

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IntrinsiQ begins move into Heer's Building

Kelly Quigg, IntrinsiQ's director of technical software support, gives Springfield Business Journal a tour of its first-floor space inside the Heer’s building downtown.

Kelly Quigg, IntrinsiQ's director of technical software support, gives Springfield Business Journal a tour of its first-floor space inside the Heer’s building downtown.

Photo Credit: Wes Hamilton

What was once a graffiti-ridden shell of the former Heer’s department store has been transformed into one of two primary offices for a national health care information technology firm.

Some IntrinsiQ LLC employees are moving in today to 17,700 square feet on the first floor of the downtown building anchoring Park Central Square. Spokeswoman Lauren Moyer said the full 90 employees would be in the building by next week.

“We’re extremely excited,” said Kelly Quigg, IntrinsiQ's director of technical software support, who this morning gave Springfield Business Journal a tour of the office space. 

She noted the average employees at the Springfield office would be young professionals, though a few actually worked in the Heer’s building when it was still a department store.

At the office, IntrinsiQ will develop medical software, including electronic medical records and a chemotherapy dosing application called IntelliDose. IntrinsiQ is a division of Fortune 16 company AmerisourceBergen Corp. (NYSE: ABC).

The space is roughly double the size of IntrinsiQ’s existing Springfield office at 1701 S. Enterprise Ave., which is consolidating operations in New Jersey, Massachusetts and Colorado into the downtown building. With the consolidation, Springfield and a Frisco, Texas, office become the two main IntrinsiQ sites, Quigg said.

A handful of out-of-state employees chose to move to Springfield, but the majority sought other positions, she said, noting around 20 local new hires joined the team.

Quigg said IntrinsiQ has until the end of the month to move out of the South Enterprise Avenue building owned by Scott Opfer via Wescott Enterprises LLC, according to online filings with the Greene county assessor and Missouri secretary of state.

IntrinsiQ officials announced the company would lease the first floor of the downtown building during an August ribbon-cutting ceremony for Heer’s Luxury Living LLC. At the time, the move-in date was estimated at Nov. 1.

“That Nov. 1 was very aggressive,” Quigg said, noting the move-in date was urgent before a lease extension was granted at the current office.

Morelock-Ross Builders Inc. served as general contractor for IntrinsiQ’s space. 

At the downtown office, workers this morning were wrapping up site work, including painting and installing fixtures. The space, which is split by a common hallway shared with upstairs loft tenants, is packed with cubicles, offices, co-working spaces, and meeting and break rooms. Each workspace was earmarked with specific employees’ names. 

The Heer’s original ceiling and second-story railings were worked into the design of IntrinsiQ’s office, and on the upper floor, a server room and a few IT employees will be in place.

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Stephanie Bedinghaus, AIA

Buxton Kubik Dodd Creative, Architecture and Interior Design, is very pleased to announce that Stephanie Bedinghaus has recently completed her registration exams and has officially received a Missouri Architectural License.  Stephanie has been the project manager for many of the firm’s projects including some of downtown Springfield’s newest residential projects:  Sky Eleven, The U, and Sterling Lofts. 

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In Progress - Hudson Arthaus, Troy NY

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In Progress - Hudson Arthaus, Troy NY

The five-story former textile building at 621-623 River St. will be renamed Hudson Arthaus as part of a $19.4 million renovation that will include gallery space, art studios, computer programming labs, libraries and cultural displays.

The apartments are expected to be ready for occupancy in fall 2015.

The development team consists of The Vecino Group LLC and Buxton Kubik Dodd Creative, both of Springfield, Missouri; and 3TArchitects and UW Marx Construction, both of Troy.

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Chesterfield Lofts

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Chesterfield Lofts

Leasing agent Mike Fusek of Sperry Van Ness/Rankin Co. organized Chesterfield Lofts LLC to develop the 1920s-style lofts at Chesterfield Village on previously vacant land between Schultz & Dooley’s restaurant and the Roberts & Easley law firm. Fusek said there would be office and retail space on the first floor, 33 residential units divided among the middle three floors and a 6,000-square-foot fifth floor rooftop patio deck. Six commercial spaces – from 450 square feet to 1,800 square feet – are leasing for $14 per square foot. Fusek said the lofts, up to three bedrooms with prices starting at $795-$1,500 per month,  feature walk-in showers, hardwood floors and access to SpringNet Internet.

Springfield Business Journal

 

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Lost & Found finds new office, will expand services

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. -

Video by KY3

Lost & Found is a local non-profit group that offers grief support services for those who are grieving the loss of a family member or a primary caregiver.  Its support groups offer services for family members of all ages, in a unique environment where people can be around those going through similar journeys.

Lost & Found is serving more people than ever before, especially as crime rates in the area rise and families of victims seek support.  Lost & Found ran out of room in its current office, so it's moving to a space at 1555 S. Glenstone Ave., in the former Jones & Co. Realtors building, across the street from Car-Fi and Cartoons Oyster Bar & Grill.

The new space will let Lost & Found more than double the amount of groups it can offer.

"It allows us to provide multiple age groups on the same night, which is a great service for families that are driving a long distance to come to our groups," said executive director Karen Scott.  "It provides us greater visibility.  We're so excited about that.  The community has been unbelievable generous, so we've almost reached our goal of raising a little over $2 million, work has started and we hope to be in the building by October."

All the organization's services are provided for free, so its staff raises money throughout the year so it can keep providing those services to families. One of the biggest ways for them to do that, and to offer support to families at the same time, is their annual Memorial Event.

The event will be in its sixth year this year, but it will be coming with some changes.

In the past, the event has been a balloon release, where friends and family wrote their loved ones names on balloons and sent them into the sky.

Environmental concerns caused Lost & Found to regroup and reorganize, so the event this year will instead plant a garden of silk tulips in Nathaniel Greene Park's botanical garden.

Even though the details have changed, the goal is the same. Lost & Found hopes that anyone grieving the loss of a loved one can break away from the feeling of loneliness that often comes with grief, and find support in those going through a similar situation.

"It's a very public way to say someone I loved is gone and they really mattered to me, and so it allows them to come together as a group and remember those people," Dr. Scott said. "Our focus for the program is on the healthy grieving, coping skill of remembering and holding on to happy memories."

As part of their increased services, Lost & Found is now partnering with Mid-America Transplant Services in St. Louis to offer support to families of organ and tissue donors.

Most of the tulips in the garden Tuesday will be purple, but families of organ donors will be given a red tulip to honor their loved one.

Flower pick-up and sales begin at 5:30 on Tuesday, with the garden dedication program starting at 6:15 and the 5K Run/One mile walk kicking off at 7 p.m.

You can purchase a flower in memory of someone and sign up for the run or walk through Monday morning by clicking here.

  • Copyright © 2015, KY3 News

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The design of the St. Jude Affiliate Clinic at Mercy Children’s Hospital in Springfield welcomes children and their families with open arms

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The design of the St. Jude Affiliate Clinic at Mercy Children’s Hospital in Springfield welcomes children and their families with open arms

As construction continues on Mercy's new children's hospital, the St. Jude Affiliate Clinic housed within the Jane Pitt Pediatric Cancer Center on the first floor opened for business last May.

Plans for the St. Jude Clinic started in 2011 when the team of doctors and nurses who were busy helping their young patients fight their way back to being cancer-free started making a wish list for a brand new facility.

Back then, the children's cancer wing was a typical hospital setup. A nurse's desk doubled as the waiting room, and rows of treatment rooms housed kids and their families. It didn't take long for the medical team to recognize that changes needed to be made. The old setup wasn't the kind of cheerful environment these youngsters and needed. It was cold, sterile and gloomy.

In an effort to change things, a team of Mercy administrators, nurses, architects and planners toured Cardinal Glennon Children's Hospital in St. Louis and St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis.

The team returned to Springfield with a list of ideas for Mercy's new children's cancer center. There were long talks between the nurses and the planners about bringing in bikes for the kids to ride, the importance of line of sight, how to keep rooms as sterile as possible, ways to lighten the atmosphere and much more. "Honestly, I really dreaded going on that trip," says Stephanie Bailey, the practice manager at the St. Jude affiliate clinic. "I thought it would be too depressing, but it wasn't. It was uplifting."

After months of planning and getting feedback from parents and patients about what they would like to have in the facility, the final product hardly resembles the rest of the hospital. The walls are colorful, with pictures of flowers and frogs that greet kids and their families. There's a living room setup with TVs, video games and everything a kid could want. Instead of creating a hospital, the nurses, planners and architects behind this project created a space where kids can be kids and forget, even if it's just for a little while, about the cancer they're battling.

Workspace

When architect Brian Kubik started work on the St. Jude Affiliate Clinic at Mercy Hospital in Springfield, he had an especially unique tie to the project. Kubik's son, Cross, had battled cancer, and Kubik and his family had spent a whole year actually living at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis. Kubik was able to bring a parent's perspective to the project and suggested creating a work space where parents could set up laptops and get work done while their kids were getting treatment, something that wasn't available in Memphis. The boat beds were another addition to the work area, so kids and their families could relax in a comfortable space that was also medically safe.

The Teen Room

The team wanted to create areas where kids of all ages could feel comfortable. The teen room is the perfect spot for older kids to get some time away from the youngsters, and the family room is the ideal spot for the whole family to unwind and play games. The family room was an idea architect Brian Kubik brought to the table. Cheryl Doran, a member of the Mercy planning, design and construction team who led the project, heard from parents that they wanted a space that felt like home, so Kubik decided to create a space modeled after the Grizzly House in Memphis where he and his family stayed while his son Cross was receiving treatment. "The Memphis Grizzly House was on the hospital campus and was a place where families could live," he explains. "There was a family room there, so we spent a lot of time there."

Colorful Walls

Everyone agreed that bright, welcoming colors were a must. "When a kid is sick, they want to stay in their room," Doran says. "But they won't get that social time that's so good for therapy. So in order to get them out of the treatment rooms and out with the other kids, we painted the rooms white." The rest of the clinic is coated in bright blues and greens, and interactive games and activities are spread throughout.

Line of Sight

When designing the center's layout, it was important to create an open line of sight so nurses could see the patients at all times. "There are no walls that are barriers," says Doran. The walls that are up are clear, so patients can feel like they can get away while still being under the watchful eye of a nurse.

Space Planning

As the nurses and planners worked together on the planning of the clinic, they had to come up with a way to keep the kids and their families secure in the clinic while still making the clinic accessible to other hospital staff including the laundry service. The main concern was coming up with a way to prevent the spread of bacteria and disease. The solution is a series of hallways (below) that connect the clinic to the rest of the children's hospital but that don't lead into the clinic's main room where the children are playing.

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Andy’s Round Rock, TX site expected to open in November

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Andy’s Round Rock, TX site expected to open in November

Andy's Frozen Custard storefronts are all glass so customers can watch the frozen custard being made in giant stainless steel machines. There is no indoor seating, with customers either making purchases from walk-up windows or a drive-thru.

By Peggie Evans
Round Rock Leader contributing writer

Round Rock has been selected as the first location in Central Texas for Andy's Frozen Custard, a popular Missouri-based family restaurant whose main offering is the frozen treat.

Andy's stand-alone store is under construction and is scheduled to open in November at its location on A.W. Grimes Boulevard near Palm Valley Boulevard, in the shopping center where an H-E-B is located. It will employ about 40 people.

The Round Rock restaurant is the first of as many as 20 or more Andy's planned for the region, said Chris Plumbe, who owns the Andy's franchise for Central Texas. The area's second Andy's is planned for Pflugerville at Stone Hill Town Center, and a search is underway for a site for another Andy's in Round Rock, Plumbe said.

The restaurant's frozen custard is made throughout the day onsite, with no custard sold that is more than an hour old, said Plumbe, with its freshness part of the appeal of the premium frozen treat.

"There is nothing like us here," said Plumbe of the restaurant, who expects Andy's to gain the same popularity with families in Round Rock as it has in Missouri and elsewhere its restaurants operate.

Andy's Frozen Custard was started in 1986 as a small family business in Osage Beach, MO by John and Carol Kuntz, who named their small restaurant after their young son. Today Andy's is based in Springfield, Mo., and has restaurants across Missouri and franchises in a few other states. And Andy Kuntz has grown up and is now the company's president.

Plumbe grew up in Springfield and is a former restaurant manager who worked in Austin with Cheddar's Casual Cafe. When he decided he wanted his own business and was looking for restaurant franchises, he recalled the deep fondness and loyalty his own family and others had for Andy's Frozen Custard, a place many families in Springfield turned to celebrate after ballgames, good report cards and other family occasions.

He bought an Andy's franchise and decided Round Rock would be a good place to start his business because of the city's rapid growth, affluency, and good school system that attracts families, he said.

The restaurant's frozen custard is made with eggs and has a smoother, creamier texture than ice cream and has less air whipped into it, Plumbe said, and comes in two flavors, vanilla and chocolate. It sells cones, sundaes, floats and other treats.

It also sells baked goods baked fresh daily in its restaurants, like brownies and pies, including seasonal offerings like pumpkin and strawberry pies.

All of Andy's restaurants are stand-alone buildings whose storefronts are all glass so customers can watch the frozen custard being made in giant stainless steel machines. There is no indoor seating, with customers either making purchases from walk-up windows or a drive-thru. The restaurant's outdoor patio provides seating.

Andy's Frozen Custard franchises see community involvement as an important part of its operations. It donates frozen custard that it cannot sell within the first hour it’s made to schools and community organizations, Plumbe said, many of which resell the product for their fundraisers.

Andy's is one of a number of new restaurants that have located to Round Rock in the past year, said Mike Odom, Round Rock Chamber of Commerce president. Many of them are new types of restaurants unlike anything Round Rock has had previously, such as Andy's, he said, drawn here by the city's growth, ease of doing business and other factors.

"The growth is across the city," Odom said.

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