April 2018
The Inside Corner
RESTON TOWN CENTER—BLOCK 4
Reston Town Center is an area where growing families and business professionals alike can enjoy upscale dining, shopping, and recreation. With the addition of the Silver Line Metro, the area has become a center for major corporations and has grown exponentially. Reston Town Center Block 4 – now called The Signature - is situated on the northeast corner of the town center and will provide the area with 508 apartments divided among the 23 story West Tower, 20 story East Tower and two 6 story low rise buildings. The buildings will be anchored on the ground floor with a variety of retail establishments, including a grocery store. Amenities for the new residents include a sports bar, swimming pool, fitness center, and yoga room.
This was a large job with 150 of our employees at the peak of the process. C.J. Coakley Co., Inc. workers demonstrated team work as we simultaneously performed on all phases of our work over multiple floors across all buildings. With HITT Contracting as the general contractor, we navigated scheduling challenges to adhere to turnover deadlines with everyone working long hours at a fast pace. Future tenants were signing lease agreements with some moving into the lower apartments as we were finishing the upper floors.
We started in November of 2016 on the 1.2 million square foot project which had an anticipated finish date of May 1, 2018. The two high rise towers extend from a podium created by three levels of below grade parking with an additional six levels above grade on one side. Because of the size and fast pace of this job, our project managers mobilized directly on site to oversee the day to day operations. This was a critical change from the norm as it enabled direct and expedient communication with Hitt Contracting to resolve problems and keep the project on track. Having the on-site office equipped with the necessary technology and drawings allowed us to move quickly when the owner or architect needed to make a change.
MORE THAN JUST DRYWALL
In 2010 we began performing rainscreen work. Our first project was with Clark Construction at 401 M St., SW where we installed 18,000 SF of Swisspearl fiber cement panels. The project was extremely successful, and we have been in this space ever since. Since that time we have gone on to install other types of rainscreen systems including terracotta, high performance concrete, and metal panels. In addition to Swisspearl we have worked with many manufacturers including Eastern Architectural Products, Avenere Cladding, TAKTL, Metalwërks and Hunter Douglas.
We have made significant investments in our company to support this operation including Fraco scaffolding, swing stages, telescopic fork lifts, and many different tools required to install the vast range of panel products. We are committed to getting this work installed in the most efficient manner and with the safest equipment we can employ for our men.
As part of this endeavor we are now ready to partner with United States Gypsum and take on the air barrier systems required for our sheathing system. USG has come out with a factory applied air barrier that they feel will be the standard in the industry in the coming years. ExoAir allows us to install the exterior sheathing with close to 80% of the air barrier complete once the sheathing is hung. This should give building owners a superior air barrier system while increasing job efficiency in the process.
With the addition of ExoAir we can be a single source contractor for a complete rainscreen wall - from the exterior stud to the face of the finished wall. This should help our general contractors by reducing the number of trades responsible for the exterior components of a project. We hope they will find this to be a more efficient way to build projects in the future. We will continue to expand the types of rainscreens we offer and will continue to evaluate and strive to create efficiencies in this market sector.
If you think of C. J. Coakley Co., Inc. as just a drywall and acoustic contractor you are missing a large part of what we do. Our staff is available at any time to discuss the different solutions we can bring to your projects. Just give us a call.
EMPLOYEES OF THE MONTH
Each month our Foremen recommend to our Superintendents employees they feel have made outstanding efforts that contribute to our company’s success. The Employees of the Month are recognized in this newsletter and at one tool box talk each month across the company. We appreciate the hard work each employee puts forth to make the company successful, and we are proud to honor those who are selected.
January
Javier C. Castro - Carpenter - Capital One
Apolinar E. Mendez - Carpenter - Capital One
February
Juan C. Delgado - Carpenter - Joint Base Andrews
Jose Pozo - Carpenter - Spy Museum
March
Adelfo Gonzalez - Carpenter - 680 I St.
Sirio Soriano - Laborer - 680 I St.
REFLECTIONS ON BEING THE CISCA PRESIDENT
First, you want to know what CISCA is – right? It is the Ceilings and Interior Systems Construction Association. It provides a way for contractors, manufacturers, distributors, and independent sales representatives from all over the US and Canada to connect with each other. This makes a lot of sense as these groups can now network, form relationships and help make the construction industry better.
I am the current president, serving a term of one year (2017-2018), but it is actually a 3- year commitment. You are incoming president for a year, then president for a year and then outgoing president for a year. I became president by being involved in CISCA for several years and then serving on the board as a Contractor Director. The board then asked me to consider being president, they held a vote and the rest is history.
People often confuse CISCA as being a ceiling only association. This is not the case, but it is certainly ceiling oriented. We have hundreds of members who also frame the walls, hang the drywall and everything else in between. For me, CISCA represents the best-looking part of the buildings – the fancy acoustical ceiling tile, metal ceilings, wood ceilings and the beautiful drywall ceiling details. These are where the best craftsmanship takes place and the carpenters get to show off their skills.
CISCA provides technical resources for our industry. We have many publications that become the standards for installers. CISCA is very often referenced in project specifications, and architects and manufacturers look to us to provide standards for installations. We have a Ceiling Systems Handbook, Glass Reinforced Gypsum Guide, Wood Ceilings Technical Guidelines and Metal Ceilings Technical Guidelines to name a few.
Being President does take time, effort and a commitment to the association. I also need to travel around the country a lot for CISCA. It takes you away from family and work, but it is a necessary part of the job. It is a volunteer role and my goal was simply to leave the association in a better place than when I signed up. To do that I wanted to further enhance the technological resources that CISCA provides and to refocus these resources. We have updated several publications, and these are in the last stages of completion. We are starting our own Ceiling Specialty Showcase/Expo which will be held in Denver this year. We will look to use this on a small scale to help contractors, manufacturers and our vendors to get together on ceiling focused products. On a day-to-day basis we always have issues with recruitment, personnel, members, organizing events and keeping things running smoothly. Now by no means is this a solo effort. We have our Board of Directors, we have councils and we have our Executive Director and her staff that all contribute to make this machine run on all 12 cylinders. I was also lucky to have Doug Ayers and Michael Coakley nearby as they are both former Presidents of CISCA and were able to give me tremendous help along the way. My favorite part of CISCA this year was at our Convention in Florida. We had 300 members at our Gala Dinner and I had to make a speech. After my speech I picked up my guitar and got everyone singing along to get the room rocking. I have tremendously enjoyed the role and giving back to our industry in this way was a privilege.
EMPLOYEE NEWS AND RECOGNITION
Welcome new employees! Chris Williams has joined the company as our Prefabrication Manager and Adriana Pariacano is our new Payroll Accountant.
Congratulations to Tommy Berrios, Frank Cannon, Tony Cassette, Reynaldo Navarro, Miguel Neri Rivera and Robert Turner who won a 2018 WBC Craftsmanship Award in the Finishes Category for their work at the International Monetary Fund HQ1 Renewal in Washington, DC.
Our scope during this 1.9 million square foot phased, occupied renovation involved drywall; acoustical panel ceilings; extensive metal panel ceilings; wood panel ceilings; acoustical wall and ceiling plaster systems; gypsum plaster; insulation; specialty metal shapes; stainless steel installations; expansion joints; Unistrut systems; structural framing; plywood; and specialty studio installations. The main atrium, nearly 130 feet high, required an acoustical plaster applied to the existing structure. Due to construction restrictions, the atrium was unable to be accessed with conventional scaffolding. C.J. Coakley Co., Inc. spearheaded the engineering, design and installation of an interior Fraco scaffolding. Grunley Construction Co., Inc. is the General Contractor and Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, LLP is the Architect.
This newsletter is published by the management of C. J. Coakley Co., Inc. to inform our employees about important developments in our company. We reserve the sole discretion to exercise editorial control over this publication and the contents should not be reprinted without our permission.
