Paving Busy Streets in SHORT TIME

The year 2022 presented difficulties in most markets across the country, and Indianapolis was not immune to them either. They were faced with shortages in liquid asphalt, aggregates, and the diesel prices too. One unique way they tackled these issues is in the organizing structure of the company itself. They are the only vertically integrated asphalt paving company in the area.

with which we were able to complete the project with change orders by the end of 2022."

Although the Howard Companies were just formed in 2018, the company has a much bigger legacy in the Indianapolis area that goes all the way back to the 1960s. Previously, they were known as the Harding Group, but after they came under new ownership, they rebranded.

Mike Isaacs, Director of Quality Control, said that, "With the rebrand, we felt it was important to emphasize our core values as a paving company, and quality is one of those values." And they’ve shown their commitment to all of their values over the last four years by adding a wealth of new team members with many decades of combined experience.

"We own our trucking fleet, asphalt plants, milling operation, asphalt maintenance & preservation crews, concrete crews, and site preparation crews," Isaacs continued, "we believe these are distinct advantages."

Wining the Bid

"We understand what it takes to bid work, win work, and execute work to the highest quality," Sean Rizer, Howard Companies CFO, said. "The project we received the award for, the City of Fishers contract, came together in February 2022 and the base contract was completed in October. The City was so impressed with our product and partnership, they added additional scope

Their pre-construction and operations teams assessed the mainline city streets and subdivision neighborhood roads. It was a large project at almost 40,000 tons of mill and resurfacing. It would take several months to complete, and required constant communication between the field, their offices, and the city administration to ensure a safe, prompt, and on-budget delivery.

In addition to the milling, replacing, patching, and straight paving; the company would also need to pave round-abouts, cul-de-sacs, bike paths, and walking trails. The job had a little bit of everything. However, the team was confident they had formulated a plan that was efficient, safe, and would be able to achieve all the goals and deadlines outlined by the city.

There was also one other key hurdle that pushed this job and Howard Companies even further, and that was a tight six-hour window to work within each day. From 9:00am to 3:00pm every day—that's it. Fishers is a community that is still growing, and has seen an uptick in motor traffic in recent years. So, the small work window was needed to keep the bustling streets moving as much as possible.

But in the end, not only did they satisfy the demands of the City of Fishers, they exceeded them. "The city was very impressed with the work we performed," Rizer said proudly, "So much so, additional scopes were added, and we performed several additional streets which were not initially planned to be done."

That is a pretty big vote of confidence for, not only the quality of the work performed, but also "how" the work was carried out. Navigating a city administration’s needs, along with the community residents’ daily transportation needs, is no small feat.

What Sets Them Apart

Howard Companies describes itself as an employee first company. "We know without quality employees there is no chance of producing a quality project,"

Rizer said. "Our people are our greatest resource, and we look for ways to provide the top tier benefit package as well as fun activities like a huge summer party that includes employees and all family members."

That's helped them stay ahead of the game in the Indianapolis area, with staffing shortages being a major issue in the industry nationwide for the last year. They keep meeting deadlines and performing above expectations, and that might be due to their overall company cultural outlook, according to Sean Rizer. Since their rebranding, even through the pandemic, Howard Companies has experienced steady growth both organically and through some acquisitions.

"We embrace change," he said. "In an industry that is generally tagged as lagging behind, we are constantly looking for ways to provide best in class. HMA plants, new construction equipment, a new fleet of approximately 75 triaxle, and quadaxle dump trucks to service our projects. This award is the crowning achievement of a successful 2022 year for Howard Companies.” ■

For more information visit https://pavemg.com/mz1q1r

PAVE NON-PARKING RUNNERS UP Idaho Materials & Construction, (Ogden, UT)

K & L Industries and Diversified Contracting (Mulino, OR)

Eosso Brothers Paving’s “Encore” Performance Wins 2023 Paving: PARKING LOT AWARD

Organization and communication were key elements to this extensive mill and pave project inside an elite housing community.

Every contractor knows that completing work in retirement communities is no easy task. There are many different details to organize and parties to notify when work needs to be completed, with the most important goal of minimizing community disruption.

Eosso Brothers Paving, a Brothers National Company out of Farmingdale, NJ, is no stranger to these types of projects. In fact, the company prides itself on being able to effectively communicate with homeowners and make these projects seamless for everyone involved.

In 2022, the company completed work in the Encore Monroe community, a $1.5 million project that involved 589,000 sq. ft. of milling and 8,000 tons of paving in just 26 days. And they completed the work while also ensuring all parties were informed and pleased with the work.

But the project began long before the work was bid in 2021.

COMMUNITY COMFORT & COORDINATION WINS BIDS

Eosso Brothers Paving a 30-year old business in the paving industry, has been a partner with the Encore Monroe community for several years. In 2015, the company started replacing the 400 driveways in the community over a two-year period. In 2017, the company sealed those driveways and began repairs on the roadways, crack filling over 40,000 linear feet of cracks.

“The community board members knew it was time to do something to further repair the roadways inside the community and were considering sealcoating,” Thomas Eosso, owner at Eosso Brothers Paving says. “Based on the size of the project and condition of the pavement, sealcoating would not be a cost effective solution. We suggested that the roadways be milled and paved.”

Eosso developed a budget for the entire project and presented it to the board.

“Even though the community was familiar with our company, they weren’t going to award a $1.5 million project to our team without getting other options and we understood that,” Eosso said.

“Based on the scale of the project, we recommended they hire a third party engineer to come up with specifications for the job that all parties would bid off of. Once we saw those, we were confident we could build a program and win the work.”

Even though the company came in with a higher bid than their competitors, Eosso’s experience, coupled with their organization and ability to keep the community moving during the work through a genius golf cart service, won them the work at the end of 2021. Work was set to begin in spring of 2022.

PROPOSED VS. ACTUAL

As business owners in our industry know, work that was bid in 2021 looked very different from work that was to start in 2022.

“When we bid the work, fuel was $3.25 a gallon,” Eosso said. “By the time we began the project, fuel was up to nearly $6 a gallon and we knew we couldn’t eat that cost. We gave the community the option to space out the project over two years or accept a $72,000 increase from the original proposal.”

Luckily, the engineer of the community built a $500,000 buffer into the proposal in the event of any unforeseen structural damage with the pavement. Once the crew milled the pavement, the engineer walked the site with the project manager and found no further damage and work could proceed as bid with the increase.

Phasing Key To Success

To accomplish this work effectively, the company broke the work into 12 different phases.

Gary Eosso, VP of Operations at Eosso, visited the project 10 times prior to starting the work to verify the daily production and maps. Eosso office staff project coordinators got to work creating the custom maps and getting all pertinent info to project managers. From there, the Eosso office team worked diligently to keep residents informed by distributing the maps and notices each day of where work was happening and when. Signs were placed throughout the community to ensure that residents knew what was going on and all safety hazards were clearly marked.

Each day, Robert Tampone, Project Manager for Eosso for over 25 years, worked closely with the Community Manager, Shirley Santos.

“Rob met with Shirley and discussed every aspect of the project,” Eosso said. “He created a text chain that had the engineer, manager, sales team and operations and sent a text every morning to say the crew was onsite.”

During work, traffic patterns were clearly marked with cones and staff members were on site to route cars through the area so that residents were still able to get in and out of the community. In the event residents couldn’t get to their cars? The Eosso Courtesy Cart came to the rescue.

“The Eosso Courtesy Cart is a golf cart service that is like Uber for the homeowners on these projects,” Eosso said. “Eosso has a driver that picks up and drops off homeowners to their cars and houses. During paving, the roadways are closed so cars need to park out of the area and the cart creates a happy community by eliminating those long walks to their homes. Some of the elderly people have trouble walking and this was really a key factor in Eosso getting this work.”

“Keeping a community informed with accurate information is one of the most important parts of a project and Eosso excels in this area,” Shirley Santos, Community Manager, Taylor

Management Company says. “My homeowners were extremely impressed with the workmanship. Numerous residents stopped in or called to tell me how helpful and friendly the crew was to them.”

Music to the ears of the experienced Eosso team.

“It was overwhelming the amount of positivity and great comments to our crews,” Eosso said. “Our crews are all trained to give our communities a great experience even though we inconvenience them. The community kept saying how organized our crews are and the job came out beautifully and completely transformed the community. Plus, we were able to deliver the project on time and on budget.” ■

For more information visit https://pavemg.com/mz1q1r