Greenway Station Lifestyle Center Retail Mall

Kraemer makes Greenway Station a destination

By Brendan O'Brien

Consumers in the Middleton area can expect a unique shopping experience when they visit the city's new Greenway Station Lifestyle Center Retail Mall.

Kraemer Brothers LLC completed the 325,000-square-foot shopping complex in September. Centered on a historic Midwest train-station theme, the mall features vibrant gardens and fountains along with spacious, open-air, brick walkways.

The shopping center, with 14 separate buildings and several tenant build-outs, links retail, commuter and dining spaces with inviting facades and masterful brickwork. A picturesque, 60-foot, brick clock tower and an open courtyard round out the features of the mall.

"The buildings are treated on all four sides because shoppers are around the whole facility," said Tom Kraemer, president of Kraemer Brothers. "It couldn't be done like it was years ago where the front of the mall was done nicely and the back was done cheaply."

Creating that inviting atmosphere throughout the entire complex was a unique challenge from an architectural and construction standpoint. Each storefront façade features a different design and different materials to create the illusion that the shopping center is made up of many different buildings.

"If there are 25 or 35 retailers, there is an attempt to do basically 25 or 35 different storefronts," Kraemer said. "Then you get a lot of different roofing, shapes, bricks and stones."

Put the project was intense before construction ever started. About 150 value-engineering, construction and material studies were conducted for the client, including a study on wood-frame vs. steel-frame construction.

"The amount of studies was enormously high," Kraemer said. "We compared different systems to construct these buildings. That was just something we did as a service for our client."

Kraemer Brothers also took a proactive approach to safety at the site by partnering with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and participating in frequent site inspections and meetings with the agency and subcontractors.

The project called for major infrastructure development, including road and parking construction as well as utility placement. These facets of the project required Kraemer Brothers to monitor the impact of soil erosion on nearby wetlands caused by the construction.

"When you develop a project like this that has a lot of infrastructure work in conjunction with wetlands, it is a fragile situation," said Kraemer. "If you don't manage or handle the construction properly, you could find yourself creating some serious problems with the wetlands, and then it's impossible to turn back the clock."

	Project Name: Greenway Station Lifestyle Center Retail Mall Location: Middleton Submitting Company: Kraemer Brothers LLC, Plain General Contractor/Construction Manager: Kraemer Brothers LLC Architect: Klover Architects, Overland Park, Kan. Engineer: Olsson Associates, Lincoln, Neb. Owner: Greenway Center LLC, Kansas City, Mo. Project Cost: $25 million Start Date: September 2002 Completion Date: September 2003

To complete the entire $25 million project within the aggressive one-year time line, Kraemer Brothers paid extraordinary attention to managing and coordinating subcontractors. The company assigned subcontractors to separate storage spaces, and a team of four project superintendents diligently orchestrated the project's materials, equipment and manpower.

But with three months spent on infrastructure development before construction of any structures began, Kraemer only had nine months to build.

"We didn't start construction on the last building until March," Kraemer said. "So that was a challenge."