Fulcrum Handles Accelerated Schedule at No Additional Cost to Owner
Before construction could even get started on a new Colonial Bank branch in Cumming, GA, permitting delays had put the project a full month behind schedule. Despite that, Colonial Bank, a retail and commercial bank with 340 branches in five states, was committed to opening on time. They asked Fulcrum to make it happen.
“We were entering a brand new market and wanted to get our doors open,” said Julio Zaldivar, Jr., Colonial’s vice president for corporate real estate and projects manager. “That community is one of the fastest growing in Georgia. We are excited to be a part of it.”
Once permitting was done, the initial schedule gave Fulcrum 18 weeks to complete the building and turn it over to the bank. That meant the bank would be ready on January 6, but Colonial wanted it on December 17 – a full three weeks earlier. The project team worked together to form a new gameplan.
Superintendent Ed Ingram explained that communication and coordination with the bank, the architect and the subcontractors were the keys to completing the project on the accelerated schedule.
“We were able to eliminate the float time, closely coordinate the dependent activities and overlap other activities to make the new schedule work,” Ed said. “We communicated daily with the subs and each week I updated the schedule so everybody knew what was expected to happen, and when.”
As a result, Fulcrum was able to shorten construction time by almost 17 percent at no additional cost to the owner.
Colonial Bank built its reputation on a people-first approach to customer service. Colonial discovered that Fulcrum Construction has a similar approach.
“Every Colonial banker has one goal in mind – to exceed our customers’ expectations,” Zaldivar said. “It’s great to work with a general contractor that has the same attitude toward customer service. The staff at Fulcrum are great team players. They simply did the what was necessary to meet our high expectations and get our building ready on time.”