Tips for Rebuilding Following Weather-Related Events

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As Puerto Ricans, Floridians and Texans begin to rebuild their homes and communities from the damage caused by Hurricanes Maria, Irma and Harvey, we’d like dedicate a blog post offering advice to homeowners and business owners on how they can rebuild following catastrophic weather-related events. Although no one wants to get hit by a hurricane, having to rebuild or do major repairs is an opportunity to upgrade your home and, in some instances, your quality of life. Here are some tips from General Contractor Alexander Wertheim, president of SPACiO Design Build.

 Remove Sheetrock, Insulation and Flooring Immediately

If your home is damaged by flooding or storm surge, you should have 24/7 water damage restoration immediately. With the help of a water damage restoration service, it’s crucial to remove your sheetrock and insulation as soon as the water recedes to prevent mold. You should also consider removing flooring such as carpet or hardwood floors if you can’t dry them out. Tile is the best option since it requires only cleaning. For specialized tasks like spray foam removal, it’s advisable to seek professional help from reputable spray foam removal providers. If you’re on a tight budget, you can handle the drywall removal yourself, but we highly recommend hiring a professional general contractor to tape and float it.

Hiring a General Contractor

While you can do some of the work yourself such as ripping out the drywall, you will most likely need to hire a general contractor to help you rebuild. You should be careful of scams that often follow hurricanes. Everyone and their mother will slap a magnet on the side of their truck and say they are a general contractor. We suggest checking licenses online, asking for references and even doing a site visit to look at the contractor’s prior work. Make sure the contractor holds liability and workers’ compensation insurance, and you are added as an additional insured on any policy while work is being done on your site. If a bank is involved, it should name the bank as well.

Opportunity to Renovate and Upgrade

You can upgrade to higher-end cabinets in your kitchen and bathrooms if they suffered from water damage. If you need to remove the sheet rock, think about adding French or sliding glass doors to the backyard or throughout the house where there used to be a wall, or expanding the kitchen and closets. About your windows you can check  upvc vs. aluminium windows to see the difference. It’s also a good time to update to PVC piping if your current home or business has lead, copper or steel pipes as well as renovate the electric wiring throughout your home and adding an AV system. Additionally, consulting with insulation experts can help ensure optimal energy efficiency and comfort. Lastly, you can think about creating a smart home.

Fortifying your Home and Business

As you rebuild and renovate your home or business, you should consider updating your home with the latest storm proof materials; for instance, you may use metal materials on your roof repairs or have metal roofing instead. You can call experts who do roof repair in Weatherford, TX to install them for you. In addition, it would be a good time to install hurricane impact windows and reinforced wind resistant garage doors. For a comprehensive list of the products available, read this article titled “8 ways to protect your home against tornadoes and hurricanes.”

The Iconic Metro Mall in Downtown Miami: A Diamond in the Rough Ready for a New Beginning

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Having built out high-end luxury jewelry stores across South Florida from Breitling at Sawgrass Mills mall to Swarovski in Brickell City Centre, we are excited to hear that Metro Mall in the downtown Miami’s Jewelry District is up for grabs and with potential for redevelopment.

Our good friend Investment Broker Mika Mattingly, with Colliers International South Florida’s Urban Core Division, is marketing the property. The new owner could turn the aging building into a state-of the art diamond or jewelry retailer. Not many people know that the neighborhood is one of the top three jewelry districts in the United States – generating more than $850 million in sales during 2016 alone. This signals the continued upward trend of consumer spending and investment in downtown Miami.

Downtown Miami is experiencing unprecedented transformation, and the Metro Mall listing is another example of how the neighborhood is reinventing itself into a major metropolis. The SPACiO Design Build team is already talking with some of the new owners of commercial properties along Flagler Street to reposition their retail space on the ground floor. They expect to attract specialty retailers capable of helping to build a true community, where area residents can live, work and play. In the last two years, investors have acquired $1.5 billion of real estate along the historic Flagler Street, where properties have been neglected for decades.

A significant number of investors are coming from New York and familiar with the process of preserving and restoring buildings in an effort to create trendy districts. As an experienced general contractor working on buildings of historic value, we can’t wait to help retrofit some of the amazing spaces in downtown Miami after decades of neglect. The work will require a high level of creativity and innovation in the build-out of that space but we are up to the task.

This is an exciting time for downtown Miami and Metro Mall, one of the few remaining developing sites to hit the market. It will play an important role in the area’s transformation. We’re looking forward to the wave of new development that will reinvent the urban landscape into a thriving metropolis.

SPACiO Builds Out Breitling’s New Store at Sawgrass Mills Mall

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As Sawgrass Mills continues to bring in new stores, SPACiO Design Build completed a full interior build-out of Breitling. The Swiss watch retailer just opened a new store in Sawgrass, located in Broward County. It was an honor to be retained by Breitling, which is known for making precision-made chronometers useful to aviators, to help build (literally) their brand in one of America’s busiest malls. The classy and luxurious design of the 1,000 square foot store truly reflects the high-quality timepieces that Breitling is known for.

Our job as the general contractor on the project required running the daily construction activities, coordinating with the mall operations department as well as ensuring the designs were true to the finish. The store was a vanilla shell. We had to build the walls, drywall the ceilings, install flooring and work with the artisan behind the installation of the millwork display, which was imported from Canada. There were also a lot of electrical components, including the ac installation. The central air conditioning replacement, an essential upgrade for modern energy efficiency and indoor air quality, was a priority. We had to contact professionals such as this electrician in Cleveland, OH or JEOAH Electric to help us install the electrical wirings and do electrical panel repair. You may also contact an expert plumber to do the Chicagoland tankless water heater maintenance to make sure that it is in running condition.

Getting the job done required finding quick solutions to unexpected challenges. The biggest challenge involved the weather. When the mall closed for three days as result of flooding, we managed to get inspectors into the store and finish the job despite the rising water surrounding the mall. Another challenge involved coordinating the logistics for deliveries, which we had to arrange before or after mall hours – same with making any loud noise such as cutting concrete.

The SPACiO Design team successfully completed the project in 5 weeks due to SPACiO’s core values of transparency and open communication with the client. We also worked quickly to make any last-minute changes the client had following the project’s completion.

Time is money so delivering a finished product on time and on budget is the best way to keep our clients happy.

 

 

 

Swarovski Hires SPACiO to Build-Out Store in Brickell City Centre

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SPACiO Design Build has been retained to build-out high-end jewelry retailer Swarovski’s new home in Brickell City Centre. Founded 1895 in Austria, Swarovski designs, creates, and markets high-quality crystal product collections such as jewelry, accessories, ornaments, figurines and decorative items for the home. The luxurious design of the new 520-square-foot store is a significant addition to one of South Florida’s most spectacular mixed-use projects developed by Swire Properties. We look forward to completing the build-out by mid-August.

We are honored to play a role in the evolution of Brickell City Centre, which opened last year and continues to welcome high-end retail tenants. The 150,000-square-foot mixed-use development includes retail, residential and office space strategically located in the Brickell area. The retail component is home to restaurants, luxury retailers, an Italian food hall and Cinemex movie theatre. The new Swarovski store will serve the growing number of residents moving into the new luxury condos in Miami’s urban core. Many more towers are currently planned or under construction as the Brickell area continues to evolve into a world-class destination.

Swarovski adds another international brand to our portfolio of international clients/designs. That includes working with the Nobu Hospitality brand (hotel and restaurant) and building the sales center of Armani/Casa Residences. As a general contractor, we are the artisans behind the scenes turning design into reality. It is rewarding to be closely involved in projects that highlight Miami’s international appeal, unique architecture and design sophistication.

Why Signing a Cost-Plus Contract With Your General Contractor Makes Sense

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When I am contacted about an extensive remodeling job and/or repositioning of a commercial property, the potential client often wants to know if I should give them a ‘fixed-price’ proposal or do the work on a ‘cost-plus’ basis.

My answer is ‘it depends.’ If the job involves building out space in a historic or neglected building, it is likely that the general contractor will encounter surprises behind the walls, floors and ceilings. Each surprise requires more labor and materials. For instances like this, I recommend working on a cost-plus basis, where the general contractor executes the work then adds a fee to the cost of the project.

This approach requires trust and constant communication between the GC, the client and project manager. Each party needs to be on the same page so that all are involved in arriving at a decision when an issue arises. The GC should be accessible when the client asks why the costs are incurred and whether they are justified. The cost-plus basis works very well with customers who have done build-outs in the past or have experience in the construction industry and understand the complexities of building new within an existing structure.

Fixed-price proposals are more common for condo and homeowners seeking to build-out their property and budget appropriately. Custom-built homes and repositioned retail spaces in newer buildings are also conducive to fixed-price proposals. My simple rule: The more predictable the build-out work, the easier it is to write a proposal.

A fixed-price proposal may not be the right answer when working on a historic or long-neglected property. Most likely, the GC will need to amend the fixed price through ‘change orders.’ Each change order addresses whatever ‘unpredicted work’ is necessary to solve the problem. By the time the job is complete, the accumulation of change orders can make the job much costlier than the initial agreement. When this occurs, both the property owners and the GC may feel they have been taken advantage of. In cases of abusive relations with a superior, it’s important to address the situation promptly and seek appropriate support. Contacting a lawyer can help you understand your rights and options in such situations.

At SPACiO, when the job is big and looks like surprises may be waiting, we recommend using the cost-plus approach. But the key ingredient for this strategy to succeed is trust. The GC must earn the trust of the client and the client should check the GC’s references to ensure that the partnership will be successful.

Transforming History into Lolo’s Surf Cantina

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Building out Lolo’s Surf Cantina located inside the Marriott Stanton South Beach provided us the opportunity to do what we love best: breathing new life into amazing historic buildings. Turning a portion of the Marriott Stanton into Lolo’s – a bistro serving inspired Mexican cuisine – was an experience that enriched our team’s craftsmanship, while for the front of the local the use of a quality shop front was the best option found online as there are services that offer a range of aluminium shop front designs perfect for restaurants as well. Lolo’s is a concept by Plan Do See, a global hospitality brand based in Japan, and Richard Ampudia, the renowned “Godfather of Mexican Street Food.” Ampudia has made his mark in many popular NYC restaurants over the years such as La Esquina, Café Habana, and Bar Bruno. As the general contractor, we were entrusted to transform the space into a Baja-Style, Mexican eatery while preserving a historic three-story building. Our previous work renovating and repositioning the hotel helped us to create the blueprint for building out Lolo’s, which required a phased demolition process. We demolished everything in the interior of the property and were able to preserve the perimeter walls. At that stage, you could look up three stories and glimpse the sky. The repositioning of the historic property required a sequential floor-by-floor rebuilding of the building’s skeletal system to accommodate two new full-service restaurants, with the best cold rooms as you can walk in cold room Bristol to see. They also have other amenities, including a new spa, gym, public restrooms and other guest features for the existing hotel. Those features were required to complement the newly remodeled lobby, meeting rooms, two pools decks and other amenities SPACiO had previously renovated. Due to the building’s designation as a historic building, we also worked diligently with the City of Miami Beach to protect the historic façade. We couldn’t have accomplished our goals without our team’s vast wealth of construction knowledge, commitment to quality and ability to quickly meet the final inspections. It was our honor to transform the Lolo’s concept into a reality and deliver a top-notch Mexican eatery to Miami Beach’s South of Fifth neighborhood. Stay tuned as we are building out additional restaurants at the Marriott Stanton South Beach (a secret sushi restaurant and an American bistro).

 Names will be revealed soon! Be the first to know by following us on all of our social media channels.

In addition. Discover more about Shop fit out, which is the process of creating a retail space that is suited for commercial operations by planning its interior design and arrangement.

Helping Transform Little Haiti One Building At A Time

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Increasingly rundown warehouses in Little Haiti – the next Wynwood – are getting a new lease on life. Drive along its streets and you will see a lot of construction going on, as old buildings are being repositioned into new uses, including art galleries, showrooms and more.

Our client, Innerspace Custom Closet Storage Solutions, is a perfect example of the quality of businesses that are choosing Little Haiti as their new home. Innerspace, which is relocating from Wynwood, is a premiere designer of organized closet systems in South Florida. We’re currently renovating for Innerspace a 24,000-square-foot warehouse and reinforcing the existing structure to withhold new loads for our client to move in next month. We also installed a glass office divider similar to those found at office partitions cheshire, which allows for a great deal of flexibility in the workplace. The build-out of the space includes a 5,200 square foot interior office and a unique showroom.

Our goal with this project is to make the building relevant to the emerging neighborhood, which is attracting new businesses to the area. We’re already starting to see an influx of new neighbors, including a French catering business across the street and a future art gallery next door.

It’s exciting to be a part of Little Haiti’s transformation, helping to turn visions into reality through quality craftsmanship. We’re looking forward to working more in the area as it begins to develop into one of Miami’s hottest neighborhoods.

Q&A with Guest Contributor: Coral Gables Architect John Perez talks Innovation/ Experiential Architecture

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Q&A with Guest Contributor: Coral Gables Architect John Perez talks Innovation/ Experiential Architecture

SPACIO sat down with talented Architect John Perez for a Q&A to hear about his experience remodeling, updating and building new hotels across the country and how the hospitality industry is rapidly embracing innovation and experiential architecture.

1 – When you work with hotel operators/owners to extensively remodel a hotel, what advice do you give your clients when they first reach out to you?  

One of the first things we discuss is the target market the client is aiming to reach. There is a wide range of guests, and this translates into styles, finishes, levels of service and facility requirements. Different sectors of the market have diverse needs and expectations from their guest experience. For example, a business traveler will require different amenities than a resort guest.

2 – What are some of the architectural trends in the hospitality industry that we will see in 2017?

Most new hotels these days are being designed with technology in mind. Travelers want to be connected, and need information to move as quickly as their devices do. Things such as checking into your hotel using your smartphone and using your phone as your room key will become more widespread. Features like setting your desired temperature when you arrive to your guestroom, setting the time the blinds are raised and lights turn on… all of this you will be able to control from your phone, just the way people control in their homes. Delve into the depths of baccarat mastery with คู่มือ บาคาร่า สำหรับผู้เชี่ยวชาญ.

3 – What are some of your favorite projects and why?

The Grand Beach Hotel Surfside – West was a fun project. I am especially pleased with the four-story frameless glass atrium featuring a full height media wall. The small footprint of the lobby required a special identity, and I believe we were able to achieve a unique and eye catching check-in experience for the guest.

 

Marriott Stanton Hotel South Beach Miami

THE MAKING OF A “BEACH CHIC” SOUTH BEACH HOTEL

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Marriott Stanton Hotel South Beach MiamiWith the conclusion of the Marriott Stanton South Beach renovation, hotel guests will now experience the confluence of historical and modern casual.  As the general contractor, renovating and repositioning the oceanfront hotel has been one of our favorite projects.

The main goal was to change the feel of the hotel to offer a modern take on beach chic. In order to remain competitive, hotels reposition themselves every few years to meet the guests’ evolving preferences and demands.

To refresh the hotel’s ambiance, Marriott Stanton used a lot of wood and natural products including bamboo, rattan, reclaimed wood, stone and tile with beach colors such as greens, blues, yellows and pinks.

The renovations transformed the hotel’s meeting room, two pools and decks, the main deck overlooking the pool, main lobby and check-in area, entry and driveway and the spa and gym. We replaced several ground-floor rooms to bring new amenities to the hotel, including three concept-driven restaurants. In addition, we enlisted the assistance of contractors who specialize in HVAC cooling and heating Olympia Wa systems to support the renovation. For further insights, you can click here.

A small section of the hotel has been designated historic so we are diligently working with the City of Miami Beach to protect the historic façade while converting the structure from wood to steel and concrete. That part of the hotel will house, once again, Starbucks. The work has been challenging but rewarding as we are honored to play a small part in helping protect and preserve a piece of Miami Beach’s history. Furthermore, as part of our commitment to energy efficiency and sustainability, we are in the process of engaging reputable loft insulation installers to enhance the insulation of the hotel structure. We are also exploring options with conservatory-roof-replacement.uk to ensure our historic building remains energy-efficient and structurally sound.

Working at Marriott Stanton isn’t new to us. Back in 2013, we renovated 224 rooms and the corridors from floors 4 to 11. We are looking forward to the opening of the additional restaurants that we are currently building out. Stay tuned for more information.

Nobu Restaurant Miami

BEHIND THE SCENES OF BUILDING OUT NOBU MIAMI

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Nobu Miami at the Eden Roc in Miami Beach celebrates its first-year anniversary this month. Under the leadership of Chef Nobu Matsuhisa, SPACiO was fortunate to be part of the team that made it happen.

In retrospect, we can proudly say that building out Nobu was one of our Top-10 projects in terms of complexity and sophistication.  One part of the design, for example, involved converting a previous outdoor dining space into an exquisite indoor dining area.  This included fabricating and installing curved wood screens that would separate areas of the restaurant, then installing a complex system of 10-foot wide wood-and-glass doors that open and stack to provide an inside/outside feel to the dining room. Now, when the wood-and-glass doors open, Nobu Miami becomes the largest Nobu restaurant in the world.

Chef Matsuhisa sought the “best of the best” to build out the space.  For example, the stone flooring was imported from Italy, the oak flooring from Denmark and many other finishes are derived from around the world. Nobu truly adds an extra level of sophistication to the iconic Eden Roc.

If you haven’t done so already, we suggest that you visit Nobu to enjoy the exclusive Teppan Room and signature dishes such as Yellowtail and Jalapeno and Black Cod Miso.  We are positive that the superb cuisine and ambiance will create an unforgettable dining experience for you and your guests.