Happy Anniversary Hard Hat Chat: Celebrating 10 Years of Commercial Construction Trends, News, Insights, and Conversations
In 2009, amid the business challenges of the Great Recession, our company made the decision to start a blog as an outlet to share commercial construction trends, insights, news, and observations on a variety of topics. If you had told me then that we’d still be publishing Hard Hat Chat a decade later – and that it would become an award-winning blog – I probably wouldn’t have believed you. But here we are, with 147 blog posts under our belt, celebrating Hard Hat Chat’s 10th anniversary.
In light of this milestone, I looked back at some of our earlier posts. And you know what I found? We got it wrong…well, kinda. In one of our first posts, we talked about how the commercial construction industry hasn’t changed that much. But after reading through 10 years of blog posts, I realized it has changed – and so has Englewood Construction. Here’s what stood out to me:
The Retail Evolution: Shopping Mall, Flagship Store & Big Box Construction
The past decade brought more ups and downs for the retail sector than the escalators we installed in malls. Just like how retail brands and CRE owners and developers learned to evolve with the shifting landscape, we also adjusted our business. Our firm’s roots may be in traditional mall tenant build-outs, but over these 10 years we’ve expanded to other retail work — from ground-up big box construction to experiential flagship stores. Yet, I did get a sense of déjà vu when reading this 2009 post, Is The Baby Being Thrown Out With The Bathwater In Big Box Construction, which discussed how the shuttering of big box space brands like Circuit City and Linens ‘N Things were creating an opportunity for those stores to be repurposed. Switch out the store names to Toys R Us and Sears, and it’s the same conversation we’re having about the retail sector today!
Riding the Silver Tsunami: Senior Housing Construction
In the decade we’ve been publishing Hard Hat Chat, the Baby Boomer generation has created an unprecedented demand for senior living options. Looking back to when we dipped our toes into senior housing construction, our blog posts focused on remodeling work at existing facilities. Today, echoing the continued demand in the senior housing sector, we’re seeing even more activity and opportunities with senior living developers and operators – from adaptive reuse projects to ground-up development.
A Menu of Success: Restaurant Construction
When it comes to restaurants, we’ve seen – and built – it all, from the fast-casual brands that were booming during the economic downturn to, more recently, unique experiential concepts that are as much an entertainment destination as a restaurant. While the restaurant concepts we work on have become more complex, the same basic principles still hold true for restaurant construction success – delivering projects on time and on budget will always be a priority for our clients.
An Ounce of Prevention: Facility Management Services
One thing we didn’t see coming in the early days of Hard Hat Chat was the booming demand we would have from clients for facility maintenance services. What started off as a couple of small favors for clients who needed help with minor facility maintenance projects has blossomed into a pretty substantial part of our business that today offers planned, preventative and emergency facility maintenance. And if you’re a frequent reader of this blog, then you know our clients think it makes a lot of sense to partner with the general contractor that constructed their facility to maintain it, too.
CRE Trends: Green Rush Ahead?
Of course, this industry will only continue to evolve as brand-new opportunities drive activity in commercial real estate. We touched on one of the newest CRE trends impacting our industry in our last blog post – how the legalization of recreational marijuana could create the next big national wave of boutique retail expansion. As we do with any new client or sector we work with, we’re taking a deep dive into the nuances of the cannabis industry and applying our experiences and insights from states where legalized recreational marijuana is old hat to the needs of clients who are entering this new territory. Stay tuned to our blog for even more updates on this “high”ly engaging topic.
So while re-reading our past 100+ Hard Hat Chat blog posts did remind me of the many changes we’ve gone through, there is one thing that’s remained constant over the last 10 years, and that’s the relationships that are so important to the business we do every day – whether with our clients, our employees, our subcontractors or other service providers. It’s a theme that pops up over and over again in a decade’s worth of blog posts: the people we work with every day are the foundation of this company. We’re grateful for all of them, just as we’re grateful for everyone who’s been a faithful Hard Hat Chat reader over the years. Thank you for reading, and here’s to the next 10 years!
Tel: 847-233-9200 x712
Questions? Comments?
You can reach me at CTaylor@eci.build
www.EnglewoodConstruction.com
