"What you hear from contractors is they don't know what they'd do without the plan room. They're just not going to buy each plan for themselves." - Alva Anaas, Northwest Builders Exchange Plan Room Executive Director

Keeping pace

By Jack Bess

		Address: 2228 N. Hillcrest Parkway, Suite 2, Altoona, WI 54720 Mailing address: P.O. Box 3003, Eau Claire, WI 54702 Phone: 714-834-2934 Fax: 714-834-3590 E-mail Web Site Hours: Monday-Thursday, 8 a.m.-5 p.m.; Friday, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Plans available: Wisconsin and out-of-state regions; 100 plans available on average Services: Photocopiers, OCE blueprint machine, fax, notary public, catalogs, Thomas Register, city directories and overnight plan reservations Membership: Call for details

The day the blueprint machine arrived marked a new era of convenience for members of the Northwest Regional Builders Exchange.

The ability to reproduce blueprints has attracted out-of-town contractors to become plan-room members, the plan room's executive director, Alva Anaas said. She added that the machine is a major time saver.

Before the blueprint machine, contractors "would spend whole days here," Anaas said. "And if you only get one or two blueprints in at once, it's hard for us to divide them between all the people who want them. Now, if somebody comes in, they can make the blueprint and leave."

In Northwest's 18 years in business, the advent of technologies now taken for granted have created demand for ever-more-immediate access to information. Fax machines and Internet connections raised everyone's expectations that information can be accessed right away.

The business environment for contractors also has grown far more competitive. Contractors "travel much farther (for work) than they did years ago," Anaas said. There isn't another builders exchange within a 90-mile radius of the Northwest Regional, but her plan room has members from places as distant as Milwaukee, she added.

"We can get plans from any place, if the architects are willing to send them," Anaas said.
When new plans arrive, Northwest Regional notifies its members on its Web site and in its newsletter.
Anaas says she's confident that although demand for information on the exchange's Web site has grown, many contractors won't warm to virtual plan rooms.

"For one thing, some small contractors don't even own a computer," she said. "And there will always be a need for someone like herself to help guide someone through the mountains of information."