Options include rearranged seating, mobile ordering, designated flow spaces.

Authored by: BY PETER FABRIS, CONTRIBUTING EDITOR
BD+C
https://www.bdcnetwork.com/designers-owners-reinventing-restaurants-cope-covid-19

Designers and restaurateurs are brainstorming design fixes to make restaurants safer amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

For example, MASS Design Group, an architecture and design collective that has worked with Partners in Health to create safe, sanitary spaces during infectious disease outbreaks around the world, released Spatial Strategies for Restaurants in Response to COVID-19. This white paper advises several measures such as establishing a clearly defined exchange zone for transition of food, supplies, and people to and from the front of the eatery to the back where the kitchen is located.

It also says that the six-foot social distancing rule isn’t practical inside of most restaurants because it would mean reducing capacity by half or more. Instead, when possible, dining space should be expanded outside into public spaces such as sidewalks, streets, and plazas.

Click Here to Read More

Authored by: BY PETER FABRIS, CONTRIBUTING EDITOR
BD+C

Big thanks to Sharpe Development for allowing us the opportunity to be a part of this years golf tournament! Such an honor to participate in this event for #dylanschoppsunshinefoundation.

The Dylan Schopp Sunshine Foundation is a 501(c)(3) non-for-profit, that aims to bring sunshine into the lives of children and young adults. The Foundation, created in the memory of Dylan Andrew Schopp, strives to spread positivity and hope through community outreach and public awareness of suicide prevention. The Dylan Schopp Sunshine Foundation proudly supports Florida’s Initiative for Suicide Prevention (FISP), Operation Smile, The Humane Society, Wounded Warriors and other non-profit organizations.

Learn more.

WORKFLOW BASED ON YOUR SCHEDULE AND BUDGET

At Dade Construction Corp., we take care of the day to day operations of your commercial project. Our team of skilled and experienced general contractors can fill many roles in all of these service areas.

We are committed to completing projects on time and within any set budget constraints, without ever sacrificing the level of quality. Whether you are looking for a complete design-build project or just construction management on your next build, we can provide the team and the materials to make it happen.

Our relationships with contractors and suppliers gives us the flexibility we need to keep the project moving forward as efficiently as possible. We make sure that every task that takes us from inception to completion is done effectively and economically, while always putting safety first, and working toward the work environment of your dreams.

Please feel free to contact us for more information about our commercial construction services.

Dade Construction Corp. has extensive experience working with some of Miami’s leading universities such as Barry University as well as private schools such as Gulliver Academy and charter schools such as Montessori Academy.

We have worked on a wide range of education buildings over the years, and we offer remodeling and construction of:

Lecture halls
Auditoriums
Gymnasiums
Offices
Classrooms
Athletic fields

Dade Construction Corp. is a full-service general contractor that specializes in high-quality commercial construction. Since the beginning, our goal has been to bring a more customer-focused service to the state of Florida. With that in mind, we would like to hear from you.

Thank you for the wonderful review, Hiroshi!

“I enjoyed working with Brian he was extremely professional. He helped me build one of the best wine bars in West Kendall. Since the beginning he was the only one from many companies I quoted that was able to envision what I was looking for. What I like the most is that he was extremely respectful with the time limits and the budget. If you have any doubts about hiring this company just come and check what they did at my place Vacillate Wine and Beer bar.

I will definitely will work with them in the future.”

View our Google reviews here.

Our company strives to create safe and reliable construction services.

As the requirements for medical buildings and hospitals continue to evolve in complexity, administrators need healthcare building contractors who have deeper levels of expertise.

The AHCA was created to ensure that all such buildings are safe, functional, and provide safety-to-life for the patients and residents in its care. This means that you need a partner that knows how to build complying with the strict guidelines so that you pass these inspections and get your facility open as quickly as possible. Your contractor must understand that a comprehensive construction and renovation plan requires things like an “infection control risk assessment” (ICRA) in order to satisfy the AHCA requirements.

If you’d like to learn more about our company, please contact us today. If you’d like to see another example of a healthcare building construction project, please click here.

Redefining the Office Space and Construction Post Covid-19

Coronavirus disease has changed how we view the world. What was popular is now a hazard. A working
space that allows networking and interpersonal connections is now a hazard. Employees planning to go
back to work are concerned about their safety. How the office is constructed and organized will have to
change to inspire employee confidence. Here are things that employers and building owners are doing
to prepare for the reopening of the economy after COVID-19.

1. Installations of easy-to-clean materials
People are more aware of the potential risks and hazards related to uncleansed surfaces. Firms are
considering easy-clean materials for commonly accessed tables and desks. These materials will make it
easy to clean your office space, reducing the cleaning bill. Firms that cannot procure new items are
renovating existing offices to add this new feature.

2. Welcoming back closed office spaces
The open office space was the trend just before COVID-19 happened. Today, firms are rethinking public
office spaces and introducing cubicles. A single COVID-19 case in an open-space office can cause
significant numbers of cross infections. Firms that had implemented open office spaces add temporary
cubicles that can accommodate fewer or even one employee per cubicle. You can use MDF or other
cheaper alternatives to separate employees.

3. Installations of IAQ
Indoor air quality is another primary concern for everyone. Apart from investing in IAQ inspections,
firms have to invest in automated systems that can keep the working environment healthy.
Incorporating technological advances such as UV lights can drastically reduce germ and viral load in the
air.

4. De-densify office space
Crowded workplaces have always been an eyesore, but they have been common in some industries and
sectors. Trading floors for stockbrokers, call centers, and such environments have always been crowded.
This culture is already changing, with firms investing heavily in new measures to put fewer people on
every floor.

5. Installations of automatic doors and sinks
Sinks and doors can easily transmit viruses from one person to the next. If a person who has COVID
opens a door, the next person who opens the same entry has a high likelihood of contracting it through
contagion. Installations of automated gates, doors, and sinks are a welcome step, especially for main
doors and commonly accessed sinks and washrooms. Automation is the future, and investing in it
ensures that future technologies such as smart controls are easy to implement.

6. Floor plan redesign
Some offices have a design that allows or encourages interaction between and among employees. Some
have correctly opened up their designs to enable customers to interact freely with employees in the
lobby and the office. This is about to change as companies are looking for ways to protect their
employees from potential infection. Floor plans are changing significantly, with companies already
considering overhauls to put barriers between customers and staff.

Final thoughts
If you have a business, you will need to rethink how the office floor plan will reflect the new realities.
Covid-19 is here for the long haul. Your office plan should consider some of these suggestions. You can
also hire a commercial construction contractor to ensure that your office plan is safe.

What The New NASA Launch Could Mean For Jacobs and Other Contractors

A successful mission could keep contracts flowing out of agency’s ambitious programs

On May 27, NASA will publicize as an extraordinary event a comparatively routine activity: the launching of a spacecraft to carry astronauts to the International Space Station. What is remarkable about the launch is that it renews U.S.-run human space flight and opens an ambitious new chapter in U.S. space exploration and science.

Since 2011, the U.S. and its partners have paid the Russian space agency to ferry astronauts to the space lab 240 miles above earth. They use Russian rockets and spacecraft.

Those trips barely make a blip on the U.S. media radar any more.

This mission is being described as a make-or-break event for the Trump administration’s space policy. In recent days Vice President Mike Pence has said the launch will be a key in “renewing American leadership in space.”

The bigger significance of the U.S. mission is that it could shore up support in difficult times for the U.S. space program, NASA-the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, its $19-billion-a-year budget—and big engineering and construction companies that count on the agency for a lot of work.

Five companies in the ENR Top 500 Design Firms and Top 400 Contractors lists are among NASA’s biggest contract award winners from the previous year. They perform design engineering, testing and certification tasks on rockets and spacecraft built for the agency by the private aerospace contractors. They also perform studies and analyses, and they design and build needed facilities at 10 major NASA space centers around the country.

Jacobs, the publicly-traded (NYSE-J) Dallas-based engineering giant, says it is NASA’s biggest service provider. The space agency’s list of its top contract awards to businesses for 2019 puts Jacobs Technology in third place at $916 million, making up 6.34% of the year’s total. Only aerospace giants Boeing and Lockheed Martin Corp. ranked higher.

Other construction-related companies that won NASA contracts in fiscal 2019 are KBR Inc., at $613 million; Bechtel Group Inc., $297 million; AECOM, $164 million and The Walsh Group, $31 million. Other companies may be working on contracts won in prior years.

Jacobs counts NASA work as part of its Critical Missions Solutions segment. Robert V. Pragada, the firm’s chief operating officer and president, described what it does for NASA at the company’s conference for investors earlier this month. He called it “broad support” for the “accelerated work to meet the current administration’s mandate to return to the moon in 2024” under NASA’s Artemis program. Most of the work is being done as telework or with social distancing during the pandemic, he added.

Jacobs’ projects at the Johnson Space Center in Houston involve engineering design, testing and verification for work including the Artemis moon mission, under a not-to-exceed-type contract.

The latest two-year contract extension, from May 1, 2020 to April 30, 2022, announced in early May, is worth $478 million. If NASA chooses to use the full amount of the contract, the total maximum value of the work could reach $1.9 billion.

In addition to the moon mission, the extension also involves work related to the International Space Station, NASA’s commercial cargo mission, on-orbit operations and science related to astro-materials curation and orbital debris mitigation, said Steve Arnette, a Jacobs senior vice president, in a company statement.

There were other recent NASA awards to Jacobs. In January, the agency designated the company as the sole provider of architect-engineering design and environmental engineering for various projects at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., the main NASA operating center for propulsion, external tanks and payloads. The work will be done under a five-year indefinite delivery/quantity contract.

Changing Space Flight Dynamics

Depending on how it goes, the May 27 launch could hasten the changing dynamics of U.S. space science. The mission could increase the role of SpaceX and other private companies in the outsourcing of work formerly done by NASA. SpaceX, for example, will own the rockets and space craft it produces for NASA rather than simply designing and building them.

Space privatization is an international phenomenon, with numerous companies and countries participating.

Another big change is NASA’s gradual adoption of fixed-price contracts as opposed to uncapped cost-plus contracts. Such contracts are a way to limit cost overruns and they now account for the majority of NASA awards, the agency’s annual procurement report shows.

Destination: Moon and Mars

Congress and the Trump Administration have charged NASA with landing astronauts on the moon by 2024 and then proceeding to a crewed mission to Mars.

SpaceX, with its business model involving reusable rocket booster stages, has been distinguishing itself as a lower-cost provider of rockets for moon and Mars missions, working under fixed-price contracts.

A parallel program to accomplish the same missions, run by a team led by Boeing, is also operating under a fixed-price contract. But that program, known as the Space Launch System, was granted a $250-million change order three years ago and remains far over budget and behind schedule with total costs currently at around $17 billion. NASA’s inspector general criticized the change order in a report issued in March.

Of course, the future of NASA’s budgets and space exploration could be limited because of the economic implications of the pandemic emergency. The agency’s space programs have never enjoyed total public support and its budget is down dramatically from its high points in the 1960s, when it accounted for 4.5% of total federal spending, according to research by NASA’s former staff historian.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office also regularly criticizes NASA for budget-busting programs.

The risks of space flight, no matter how routine, also are always a concern with crewed missions—even given SpaceX’s impressive progress.

In April 2019, one of its Dragon 2 spacecraft, which had flown a test mission without a crew the previous month, exploded during a static fire test of a launch abort system on its launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center, according to a NASA inspector general report.

Little public information came out at the time, but the inspector general noted that SpaceX had found the cause and made needed fixes. The accident pushed the previously scheduled December launch to its present May 27 date.

– Article by Richard Korman, ENR

source: https://www.enr.com/articles/49443-what-the-new-nasa-launch-could-mean-for-jacobs-and-other-contractors

PMI Legislative Forum Delivers Crucial Industry Insights

The two-hour, virtual event delivered important insights to its members on federal infrastructure legislation and critical housing and trade issues.

JUN 25, 2020

McLEAN, VA – Plumbing Manufacturers International (PMI) delivered important insights to its members on federal infrastructure legislation and critical housing and trade issues during yesterday’s PMI Virtual Legislative Forum.

“Our members gained access to valuable information from experts with remarkable knowledge and insights into issues affecting our industry,” said Kerry Stackpole, PMI CEO/executive director. “PMI members who could not attend will still have access to the forum’s recording and presentations, as well as to materials they can use to advocate on behalf of their companies to members of Congress.”

The two-hour forum was divided into four sessions. The first session, “Eye on Housing,” provided an economic analysis and forecast of the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on home and apartment building from Robert Dietz, chief economist and senior vice president for economics and housing policy, National Association of Home Builders. He discussed the current construction and housing industry outlook and how housing will be a leading element for the nation’s overall recovery.

Ed Mortimer, vice president of transportation and infrastructure at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, provided an update during the second session on various transportation and water infrastructure legislation designed to retain or create jobs, repair old systems, and stimulate consumer spending. He covered some of the key elements necessary to pass this vital legislation, including bipartisan solutions and the need for organizations, such as PMI, to continue their advocacy efforts.

During her presentation on the “Future of Trade in the Wake of COVID-19” during the forum’s third session, trade lawyer Nicole Bivens Collinson reviewed the dynamics of the United States-China tariff negotiations, the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) effective on July 1, and the impact the pandemic is having on supply chains. Bivens is president of the international trade, customs and export law practice at Sandler, Travis & Rosenberg, P.A.

Collinson discussed the short windows that PMI member companies have to ask the United States Trade Representative (USTR) for extensions to some previously approved China tariff exclusions. Depending on the plumbing product or component, the deadlines to request an extension range from July 7 to July 31, 2020. The extensions would last for one year and are being offered in an apparent bow to concerns about the tariffs’ impact on companies struggling with the coronavirus pandemic. The move would apply to some products excluded from the 25 percent tariffs that the Trump administration imposed on Chinese goods.

The final session, “Outreach to Congress: Take Action and Urge Lawmakers to Support Robust Infrastructure Package,” provided tools and information to assist PMI members in their advocacy efforts for the plumbing manufacturing industry. The tools include a customizable letter that members can use to urge local lawmakers to pass important infrastructure legislation and a directory of Congressional members.

The forum was hosted by Stackpole, as well as by the co-chairs of PMI’s Advocacy/Government Affairs Committee, Troy Benavidez, vice president of public affairs for LIXIL, and Lowell Lampen, engineering director, K&B NA sanitary products, Kohler Co., and Stephanie Salmon, PMI’s government affairs consultant.

Source: https://www.contractormag.com/industry-event-news/article/21135234/pmi-legislative-forum-delivers-crucial-industry-insights

By Tim Kampert | May 17, 2020

In 2018, my colleague John Koenig wrote about how ensuring a clean jobsite makes workers safer and more efficient, and how it tells customers that you, the builder, really do care about quality.

That article focused on the importance of tidying up at the end of each day and emptying the dumpster on a regular schedule. While important, the work of keeping a jobsite clean and well-organized starts further upstream, in the way you handle and store lumber and other building materials.

Too many builders fail to understand this concept. In about half of the 125 or so communities and thousands of new homes under construction I visit in a typical year, I see material handling practices that are not only substandard, but that also cost builders money.

Why So Serious?

We all know the problem: Lumber, sheet goods, roof trusses, and even wall panels get left out in the rain, snow, and mud, leading to host of moisture-related issues, such as warping and mold. Rain and snow also cause the breakdown of adhesives, causing wood-based panel products to swell and delaminate.

The direct hard costs are obvious: damaged lumber and panels need to be culled and replaced. The cost per piece may not be high, but it adds up when you’re building a lot of homes. There are also costs from schedule delays while framers wait for replacement materials.

lumber on jobsite covered by plastic tarp for protection from weather — Cover lumber on the jobsite and keep it raised off the ground to protect it from moisture.

Indirect Costs of Not Properly Storing Materials

Other costs are more indirect but just as serious. Builders tell me that homeowners have been getting more and more fussy about seeing materials carelessly strewn around the site, or when they see water-stained, dirty lumber during their framing walk, or even worse, mold. They begin to suspect their builder is careless, which leads to more scrutiny throughout the construction process.

Some homeowners will even take to social media to complain and post photos which, to say the least, doesn’t help the builder’s marketing efforts or reputation.

Easy Solutions for Better Building Materials Storage

These problems are easy to prevent, and the solutions are ones any builder should realize after just a few moments of thought.

For instance, schedule materials deliveries as close as possible to the time those materials will be needed so they spend less time sitting out in the weather or needing to be protected. Make sure the delivery crew puts the stacks of lumber, trusses, and panels on sleepers to hold them off the ground. And keep the materials under cover—in all weather—with plastic sheeting until you need them.

muddy jobsite with materials stored correctly off the ground and covered with plastic tarps — Good practice: building materials stored off the ground on a muddy jobsite and covered.

These practices don’t cost money (except maybe for some big tarps). And while they may require that you look at your system for ordering materials and require job supervisors to pay closer attention to material storage, the builders I know who have taken these steps tell me the payoff is well worth that minimal effort.

The bottom line is that when it comes to quality, maintaining a clean, well-organized jobsite is the lowest of low-hanging fruit. If you haven’t made this a priority yet, it begs the question: why not?

Source: https://www.probuilder.com/the-value-of-proper-building-materials-storage