Key to success

C.D. Smith takes over for Riverside Center

By Janine Anderson

The turnkey construction method can be another way of telling a future owner to "leave the worries to us."

Under the turnkey model, a contractor owns the building it's working on, arranges the financing and lets the building's ultimate owners work with only one company throughout construction. It's an approach C.D. Smith uses regularly, and it worked exactly according to plan for the Riverside Center in La Crosse.

The turnkey plan let C.D. Smith handle all the complications that arose from a project that turned to Spain and Italy for light fixtures, China for marble columns and a fountain, and India and Mexico for granite and marble flooring.

The method helped C.D. Smith handle the unexpected.

"The day we were supposed to get the millwork, the supplier went out of business," said Mike Krolczyk, C.D. Smith's project manager. "We had to quickly find alternative suppliers."

	Project Name: Riverside Center Location: La Crosse Submitting Company: C.D. Smith Construction, Fond du Lac General Contractor: C.D. Smith Construction Project Leaders: Mike Krolczyk, C.D. Smith's project manager; Terry Owens, C.D. Smith's superintendent Architect: Somerville Inc., Green Bay Engineer: Harwood Engineering Consultants, Milwaukee Owner: Riverside Center LLC, La Crosse Project Cost: $14 million Project Size: 100,000 square feet Start Date: July 2005 Completion Date: September 2006

Most important, a turnkey delivery helped C.D. Smith give Logistic Health Inc. what it asked for: a new headquarters in a timely fashion with the look and feel of a historic building in La Crosse.

But the plan went beyond Logistic's business needs. The future owner wanted the building to include a restaurant and retail space that could become a gathering place for the community.

The architects, interior designers and owners worked together to come up with the feel for the project, and C.D. Smith put it together. Building it was one thing; coordinating supplies from so many distant places while keeping the project on track was another.

"If you're running behind, you can make quick changes if products are in a warehouse in Chicago or Minneapolis," Krolczyk said. "If they're overseas, it's harder to get a grasp. It makes it a little more difficult. Everything has to be right or there will be project delays."

Ultimately, the project team worked through the challenges of gathering materials, created a building that brought life to a part of La Crosse's riverfront and, finally, turned the keys over to the new owner.

The new building fits right in with the historic part of the city and gives a fast-growing company a new home and the public a new place to gather in the first-floor Waterfront Grille restaurant.

"You walk in, and it feels like a historic building," said Krolczyk. "It's not a modern facility in a historic building; it is a historic building."