By Margie Church

In the Midwest, most contractors work from frost out to frost in. In other words, they are at Mother Nature’s beck and call. Late spring thaws and early winter storms can throw a monkey wrench in the best-laid plans. Add to it a developer’s desire to open an exciting open-air mall before the 2007 holiday shopping season arrives, and you’ve got everybody’s attention.

Chesterfield Township in Macomb County, Michigan, held its breath in anticipation of the October 30 grand opening of Waterside Marketplace.

The new mall sits on 86 acres at the intersection of 23 Mile Road and Interstate 94. Seventeen buildings comprise the 450,000-square-foot development. Construction took more than 18 months, and despite compressed and complex scheduling, it was finished and opened in the grandest of style to the delight of the entire community and its developers.

Coordination extraordinaire

Ajax Paving Industries, Inc., began placing asphalt in late 2006 for basic ingress and egress for construction crews to use over the winter. Dan Wilson, Ajax Project Estimator, says work began in earnest for them last spring. “We had a simplified bid package. The aggregate base was in place when we began our work,” he says. “Our responsibilities were to fine grade the stone base and install the asphalt paving and signs and complete the permanent pavement markings.”

Under normal circumstances, the project would not have been out of the ordinary. However, with compressed construction schedules, Wilson says crews were sometimes working right behind the excavator that was doing site work such as placing stone and installing the water and sewer lines.

Paul Graney, Ajax Project Manager, realized immediately that this situation would require extra crews to meet deadlines. “The general contractor, Clark Construction Company, wouldn’t need to worry about his deadlines as long as we were on the project,” he says. “We didn’t hesitate to call in one of the trusted subcontractors we regularly use to help us out.”

Ajax crews had to make sure its asphalt was placed to the precise grade elevation to eliminate any rework and make the job appear seamless when curbing and sidewalks were finally installed. “Sometimes we were placing pavement before the concrete curb and sidewalk were done,” Wilson says. “We generally don’t do that.”

Jeff Konkle, Project Manager for Clark Construction Company, agrees that the timeline “was a hair quick” for a job of this magnitude. This was evidenced by the six-days-per-week, 12-hours-per-day schedules his company kept. “We committed to an opening date in the permitting and approval process, which stated a short construction period. We intended to hit the date, and we did,” he says.

Manpower and materials

Project schedules also benefited because Ajax owns its own materials supply companies. Their New Haven, Michigan, materials division was only three miles away from the jobsite. Graney says this helped contain and reduce costs by minimizing trucking costs and the time needed to make deliveries. The fact that Ajax owns seven asphalt manufacturing plants provides opportunities to also reduce materials costs. If the construction schedule flexes unexpectedly, or demands from other jobs change, Ajax is in a proactive position to respond in a timely manner.

“If one plant is booked,” Graney says, “we can go to another plant of ours to service the customer or job and keep everything running smoothly. This is a real benefit for customers and really reduces stress on these tight timelines.”

Graney’s role is to ensure that Ajax’s production rate (tons per day) meets the job budget as bid. He is a daily visitor to the jobsite, especially in the morning to make sure crews and materials are ready for the day’s work. At the end of the day, he’s back again to decide what is needed for the next day’s operations. “My biggest concerns are making sure the job gets done properly and on time.” This is a simple statement with huge ramifications that include not only satisfying manpower and materials requirements for a particular job, but also providing the proper equipment and safety for Ajax’s crews.

Wilson says Waterside took 4,000 work-hours to complete. Sometimes the six or seven crew members worked seven days a week to make better progress when the architectural building trades would be off.
Approximately 150,000 square yards of asphalt pavement covers parking lots and roadways. The major ingress and egress roadways, truck routes, and loading areas are heavily traveled, so the 40,000 tons of bituminous asphalt helped ensure a smooth, durable ride.

“Waterside was one of our larger private jobs for 2007,” Wilson says. “We’ve completed many projects for Clark Construction during the past 10 to 15 years. Certainly our previous experience with them helped expedite the project’s completion.”

Konkle echoes that sentiment. “It was another good experience,” he says. “Ajax was very accommodating in tough field conditions that were rather congested at times. There was a clearly defined window of opportunity to pave, and we appreciated the weekends and evenings they worked to make it happen.”

Project snapshot

According to Konkle, Waterside is a terrific addition to all of the new retail in the area. Best Buy, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Bed Bath & Beyond, DEB, Old Navy, TJ Maxx, and Dress Barn are just a few of the shopping attractions at this lifestyle mall. JC Penney will open in March 2008.

Waterside has great visibility from I-94, and traffic to the shops has already been very good. There is plenty of convenient surface parking, a full sidewalk system throughout the site, and several seating areas to enjoy. Attractive landscaping and water features are beautiful accents to this mall’s natural setting near Anchor Bay and Lake St. Clair.

“Ajax is a very qualified contractor that provided great service,” Konkle says. “They were a key part of a great site work team that brought things together for a successful outcome.”