TLM Admin 2024

Projects are the life blood of any construction company.

Through our 25 years of business New Star has been fortunate to carry a steady stream of projects of varying size, complexity and time lines. Projects are by definition have a start point and a finish point. Generally each month sees projects begin or end and this month is no exception. Currently we are wrapping up the construction of the New Physicians Holding Clinic at Quinn’s Junction and at the same time we are starting a new project to remodel of the Baja Cantina at the Park City Mountain Resort.

PARK CITY CLINIC

May 17, 2011 will be the first day patients will be seen at the new facility with the grand opening and completion ceremony to be held Monday, May 23, 2011. The public is invited to attend the ceremony and to see and visit the new facility.

Reception                                                                                                     Reception

The two-level building totals approximately 25,000 sq. ft.  The main level has two clinic suites with an additional 150 sq. ft. coffee shop operated by Cecil Duvall. The second level has three clinic suites. All spaces have been leased and are completing their tenant improvements.

BAJA CANTINA

At the same time the clinic is nearing completion, as of Thursday, April 28, 2011, New Star Project Manger Ron Fors and New Star Site Superintendent Roy Smith have started the remodel of the Baja Cantina located at the Park City Mountain Resort.

Existing Entry to be Removed                                              Sloped Glazing to be Removed

Reed Shott, building owner, has contracted New Star to remove the existing glass canopy and entry which is to be replaced with a new metal roof supported by wood framing with new metal clad doors and windows.

The remodel designed by Jonathan DeGray is scheduled to be completed by Friday, June 17, 2011 in time for the Park City summer season. A six week, seven day per week race to the finish.

PROJECTS LARGE AND SMALL

The nature of our business is that we are always in the process of completing and starting new projects of all sizes. Over our twenty five years of business we have successfully started and finished approximately 485 projects in Summit, Wasatch and Salt Lake County’s for clients including Deer Valley Ski Resort, Park City Mountain Resort, The Canyons, Glenwild, Tuhaye Ranch, Talisker Corp, Gary Cole, Jack Koson and many others.

On anther level our service division starts and completes smaller projects on a daily and weekly basis. Projects such as home inspections, home repairs, mechanical and electrical servicing and any smaller remodel projects from room additions to new kitchens and bathrooms.

We have found that by providing owners and developers with what they want, when they want it for a fair market price that we position our company to work with these same clients again while continuing to reinforce our reputation as quality builders.

We look forward to working with you on your project of any size and challenge.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 2nd, 2011 at 4:59 pm and is filed under Blog . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Edit this entry.

It’s amazing how such a small idea can turn into such a huge deal. One minute, sitting in the conference room with Dave Love, talking about the service division we used to have, and how we ought to reintroduce it, the next minute, thinking we ought to try out home inspections. One thing leads to another, and there 3 of us were, in Phoenix AZ, getting certifications for home inspections. Now, having a few of those under our belt, and the service van making laps around Park City, and even down into Salt Lake, it’s grown into a full time job.

What started as a “what if”, has turned into us sending out post cards to all of Park City, and having to keep a log of phone calls we’ve gotten that we need to follow up on. It keeps us on our toes. What else it allows us to do, is meet with new people every day, and in a lot of cases, let’s us help people who have been wondering who to call that they can trust to do it right. I’m looking forward to the next few months, and see just how big this blows up.

Riley Holmes

There seems to be a lot of conversation and information concerning new construction and  remodeling both commercial and residential, that I’ve found to be somewhat misleading.   In our market of high end condominiums, homes and commercial products, there is all this  talk of how building costs are way down. Both labor and material. We’ve had client’s and   prospects who have told us they can get their projects built at some unbelievable low rate.

The market is tough, the competition is tough and everyone is looking for more work. Contracts are being signed on projects for amounts that all of us our shaking our heads. How can that be? Well, what we’re finding out through this bidding process the last couple of years (and bidding  with subcontractors we’ve worked with successfully over the years) there’s just enough money in some proposals to cover the materials let alone the labor and the cost to do business.  Unfortunately, owner’s and general contractors are accepting these bids just to get the job. Then it’s doing everything legally possible to hold them to it. How long can this go on?

This has caused projects to suffer. The back chargeing of subs for numerous things like cleanup, dumpster fee, off loading or hoisting. Things that use to be part of a project. Schedules suffer  because some subcontractors won’t show up until everyone is out of there way so they’re not  held up or lately because they don’t have the people necessary to cover all their bases.

I believe that old saying “You get what you pay for” is real and right now it is really coming back to bite a lot of owner’s and developers. There are numerous projects around the area where subs  have pulled off because they’re out of money. They low bid the project hopeing they would make some back in changes and keep their key employees busy. Well, that didn’t happen. Now they are over budget, the money is spent, and the general contractor and owner is left holding the bag. There’s a lot of frustration and stress involved in this whole process.

How did we get here? Who told these owners what to expect in costs? The realism is, building   material costs aren’t cheaper. It still takes the same amount of time to perform the many tasks   involved in a construction project. How about the true craftsman? Sure there is cheaper labor,  and then the project suffers with poor workmanship and the true quality which it demands. Every owner expects and demands high end quality, but in this low bid arena of today, aren’t willing to or  feel it’s not necessary to go the extra mile and pay for it. Right now the whole industry is suffering.

A few bright spots to all of this is, it’s helped every company to reevaluate where it’s going. How we can all be more efficient in business and where and how to cut down on waste. Let’s hope  we’re turning the corner on this one and let’s look to a brighter future.

Gene Mietchen

I have always been a skeptic. Noah’s Ark (good story) no way. Flat earth in 1492 no! The Republicans do not want to spend? Ronald Regan proved that wrong. Global cooling? Oh I mean warming? Not sure anymore. But how about Solar Power? And why should we toy with the idea when power is so cheap here in Utah? The answer is in my title. We plant tulip trees, that take 26 years to bloom, and we die and leave our children money. I recently sat down with a very informative gentleman by the name of Brad Stevens. Jeff mentioned Brad a couple weeks ago in his blog.  Brad owns a company that deals in Solar and Wind systems. Now you say if he owns the company why would you believe him? Well I didn’t. I went to work trying to figure this out for myself. I wasted some time, some time was spent on the productive side and some was just re-inventing others work. First Solar Panels are expensive. They are very easy to install. They work great when the sun is shining and not at all if they have a shadow on them. They do not require battery systems. And yes they are bad for the environment when we dispose of them. The new Panels have an approximate life of 50 years.

But wait here is the coolest part, THEY HAVE SUBSIDIES. This is money given by the government (you and I ) and power companies to buyers of Panels as an incentive to purchase these kinds of products. I asked Jeff what the hell is up with that. He went away and did some research, came back with why not Dave, they still subsidize the Oil industry. He convinced me that in order to get all of the future benefits from a technology we need to simulate “thought”. And that is what we are doing by the subsidy. The Panels have vastly improved over the last few years, as well as installation techniques. The number of users has increased and brought the price down and improved the product. Ok cool. So let’s get in this soon. Here are some of the subsidies that are being offered now.   The state of Utah is somewhat behind others with the money they credit you with, (tax credits) at 25% or $2000 which ever is less. The Federal government is good to us giving 30%of the cost of the system. Lastly the power companies have different kinds of subsidies and less often (not always) , like $1.50-$2.00 per watt that your system generates. Keep in mind that none of these come to in cash; they come as Tax Credits by the Government and Bill Credits by the power companies.

What should I do about this?  I started with the New Star Office/Mill a building , where we use on average of $500 worth of power per month at  an average cost of 6.5 cents (lower than residential power by a penny)per Kilo Watt Hour= kwh,(10-100 watt bulbs burning for one hour)and we use about 7700 kwh each mouth. My bet is that you never would have thought that you could light 10-100 watt bulbs for an hour for only 7.5 cents?  So we use about $6000 worth of power per year. And about 92000  kwhs. So here is the basic math. The Solar system for my office (full 92000 kwhs) will cost around $175,000.  If I time it right the subsidy from the power company is about $53,000, the State $2,000 (cheap) and the Feds about $36,000.  Bringing the cost down to a mere $84,000.

S%&@ that is a lot of Money to shell out for Solar power when we could buy stock in Wasatch or Squatters Beer (the price of which I control by ????) and earn maybe a 5% return until we die and leave it to our kids? No! No! No! Back to Solar power. So the 84k pays all our power bills for 50 years. So for the sake of my hope for 5% on my Beer stock let’s apply 4% inflation to our cost of living over the next 50 years, and run the math. By not having a power bill we can save 84k in about 11.5 years paying us back for my investment in Solar. It would take 29 years to catch up with the beer stock ,and in year 50 the Solar Panels would be ahead of the Beer by about $430,000. Without any Subsidies the Panels pay for themselves in 20 years and they finally catch the beer stock in year 69. Yes 19 years after my Granddaughter pays to have them taken down and replaced by the Flux Capacitor that replaced the Panel technology back in 2045.

The key here is that we should do one of two things. 1-get our Panels now while the subsidies (you helping me buy my Panels) are here or 2-buy half beer stock and half Solar Panels. So if Teresa and I leave our building to our kids, they will in the end, be happy with both Beer Stock and Panels. 50 years is a long time and we all know that we will be long gone, but I still want to make the best choice, so I go back to the title of today’s banter. I am very happy that the previous owner of our 1890s Victorian house Planted a Tulip Tree for Teresa and I, It blooms for us every year!  Thanks. And as I touched on, we leave our kids money and Beer stock. On top of all this, think of all the coal we would save by generating our own power. So if people do their research and the subsidies hold up Panels will continue to go up all across this country, and the number of home brewers will increase as well. Maybe Greg Shirf and Peter Cole will give me the recipes for Devastator and Hop Rising.

Thanks

 Dave Love