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CONSTRUCTION
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The Industry’s Newspaper Tower Life Building Downtown San Antonio
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Volume 17
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Number 6
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JUNE 2015
Positively charged
The doctor is in(TEC)
Don Watson and Sam Nunnelly embarked upon a new electrical entrepreneurial endeavor, Watson Nunnelly, at the start of the year.
L-R: “Dr. Paul” and Jaya Palaniappan, owners of InTEC of San Antonio, and Murali Subramaniam, an engineer who oversees geotechnical and construction materials testing at the firm
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aving opened the doors on the first of this year, Watson Nunnelly, LLC is preparing for the healthy workload ahead in the next few months. With Don Watson and Sam Nunnelly at the helm and manpower already lined up for big jobs on the board, the new electrical contractor is off to a ‘power’ful start. Watson worked at Alterman for 18 years, and then he switched to general contracting for two-and-a-half years. Wanting to return to the electrical world, Watson began working toward establishing his own electrical contracting company in February of last year. Nunnelly had worked for his family’s general contracting company and had pursued his own independent develop-
ment at Core Continuum Group. With most of his work in the oil and gas industry, Nunnelly wanted to return to the construction side. When Watson asked Nunnelly if he was interested in going into business with him, Nunnelly jumped on board. Emphasizing the importance of working with good people, Nunnelly says, “They don’t get any better than Don.” He adds that the growth of Watson Nunnelly will be driven by the number of good people they can find, with 10 already committed and about eight coming in for projects scheduled to start soon. continued on Page 24
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ince the San Antonio firm Integrated Testing and Engineering Company, better known as InTEC, began in the garage of its founders, the firm has grown its operations and expanded its services and markets while – almost literally – building upon its experience. E.A. “Dr. Paul” Palaniappan, PhD, PE, and his wife and managing partner, Jaya Palaniappan, started out in geotechnical engineering and construction materials testing in San Antonio. Dr. Paul would do the work in the field, and Jaya would do all of the finance and some of the lab work, which she still does today. As they added environmental and geological site assessments, they have
also expanded from single-family residential to multi-family to commercial and public work for the City of San Antonio and Bexar County. They also opened offices in Austin, Dallas and Houston. Today, Dr. Paul and his wife own and operate InTEC of San Antonio as its own entity while their sons independently own and operate the other offices. “We are fortunate to have started the company in a state which is always growing,” comments Dr. Paul. “We are fortunate to be in Texas.” Working in the field in San Antonio since 1976, Dr. Paul is familiar with the local soil conditions and his long history continued on Page 24
A retail Dominion
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cross I-10 from the Dominion, tenants are quickly filling up lease space at the Dominion Retail Center recently completed by RED HAWK Contracting Company, Inc. The project cost was approximately $2 million and the build presented several challenges, but the project turned out really nice in the end, notes Desi Valdez, president of RED HAWK. The project achieved substantial completion Apr. 2. There were a few challenges and delays from the very beginning. The building pad for the 20,000-sf shell building had been done outside of RED HAWK’s contract, but due to the amount of time that passed between the pad being done and RED HAWK starting, they had to reprocess it. After bidding the project in October 2013 and starting in January of last year, construction was shut down immediately. Doubling the duration of the project
was the unknown requirement that the existing access easement for CVS could not be closed for any significant period of time. Keeping that access open meant limiting RED HAWK’s own access, as well as their storage capacity of what could be brought to the site on certain days. This forced RED HAWK to phase the entire project. A second significant delay was an issue with the size of a water quality unit, which had to be at least doubled in size, complicating the excavation for the unit itself. Once clarification as to the size of the water quality efficiency was approved, the site utility work started up again. A third significant delay was the unusual amount of weather days, Monday through Friday, the build suffered because no work could be done. Valdez estimates that on a typical job lasting five RED HAWK Contracting Company’s recent project, The Dominion Retail Center, features a multi-faceted storefront.
continued on Page 24