Covering the Industry’s News
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CONSTRUCTION
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The Industry’s Newspaper Discovery Green
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www.constructionnews.net
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(210) 308-5800
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Volume 13
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Number 5
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MAY 2016
The place to be
Home sweet home
The Nut Place employees have fun fishing at Galveston Bay. Only one fish was caught - a hammerhead shark.
The ribbon cutting ceremony at the new Friendswood location
he Nut Place started in 1973, the same year vinyl albums were still produced by bands like Elton John, The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. In that year, a husband and wife team started the fastener business in northwest Houston. In time, they hired one employee and the business expanded into a bigger building. The company had a workforce of seven employees when a new owner purchased it in 1995. Next, the company moved into its third and largest building in 2010 and peaked with a workforce of nearly 50 employees. The hybrid tilt-wall/steel frame building features a six ft. concrete sign in the shape of a nut.
“Business relationships with customers have always carried a bit of comedy relief on account of our company name,” said Roger Pearce, warehouse operations/IT. “It’s no surprise when customers arrive at the sales desk just to say that it’s them that really belong here at The Nut Place.” Pearce says regular customers halfjokingly ask the receptionist on the phone if they are calling the "nut place" or the “nut house”. “There's always laughter no matter how many times it happens,” he said. According to Pearce, the biggest development for The Nut Place in the past six months has been the addition of a
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orrison Supply Co. started the Houston waterworks division in 2004 and has grown to a $20 million a year operation just in the Houston market in 12 years. Branch manager Eric Rice says the Houston waterworks division has moved to a new facility located at 14500 Beamer Rd. in Friendswood. A ribbon cutting ceremony took place on Apr. 12. “We moved from our old location in Houston that was combined with plumbing and PVF inventory, to a standalone waterworks division,” Rice said. “The move has been long overdue. We have been looking for years to find a good location with a larger yard.” The Houston waterworks division
continued on Page 18
held its long awaited grand opening on Apr. 7 to show off the fully stocked 12,000-sf warehouse and 10-acre yard to customers. “We fried more than 400 fish filets for lunch and had more than 150 customers in attendance,” Rice said. “The grand opening was a huge success. We had support from our general office and our local management team also attended the event.” Rice says the company gave away approximately $5,000 in raffle prizes. Several vendors had booths set up at the event. “One booth had a Inserta Tee race for a flat screen TV,” he said. “We also had a continued on Page 18
Highlighting your project
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iFLY Memorial – Houston, Structura
Houston Research Center, Bartlett Cocke General Contractors
ach month we reserve this premium space in our publication to feature a recently completed project by a Houston general contractor. Our goal is to vary the project and contractor size to afford everyone the opportunity to participate. We feel a small- or medium-sized project constructed by a smallor medium-sized contractor is just as important as the high profile projects that seem to receive all the attention by other media. Finding those small to medium projects can be difficult at times. Some contractors might think we would not be interested in their project because it may be a modest one. Some may think because they are not a huge company with a full-time marketing staff they don’t have a chance to make the front page of our paper. Nothing could be further from the truth. Since we began our first paper, the San Antonio Construction News in October 1998, we have always reached out to everyone big and small. continued on Page 18
The Hendley Building, Building Galveston Inc.
Sierra Pines Phase II, EE Reed Construction LP