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Business Lessons from a Founder

I have worked with and learned from amazing people on my journey – let's build together.

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Our Crane at The Standard at Columbia

One of Clayco’s iconic cranes just went up at one of our project building sites, and every time it happens, I think it’s a reason to celebrate. To me, our cranes represent a lot of the hard work, determination, and bold commitment to progress that we bring to everything we build. They also represent who we are as a company and the spirit of innovation that always drives us to do our best work. These photos show the new crane that’s going to help us complete The Standard at Columbia, which will become a 17-story student housing tower in Columbia, South Carolina. They showcase some of the stunning views that residents will get to experience firsthand once it’s finished in Fall 2023. I always love seeing the progress our teams are making on the ground, but it never ceases to amaze me how much you can really take in from above.

Brickline Greenway – Pillars of the Valley

When you’re in the business of building communities, you must ensure that the community you have behind you has the right values in place – and Clayco’s partner companies are the best of the best! Lamar Johnson Collaborative never ceases to amaze me with its incredible landscape architecture, planning and urban design, most recently with its work on the one-mile stretch of the Brickline Greenway in my hometown, St. Louis!

Clayco’s Growth in Phoenix

We’ve been hard at work recently on a lot of projects in Phoenix, including The Cubes at Glendale, Preflight Phoenix, and a new project with Scannell Properties that we broke ground on in April. It’s a rapidly expanding market that we’re really interested in contributing to, and it’s all part of our growth plan to build out our Southwest book of business in the coming months. We also just began construction on a new 26-story residential tower in downtown Phoenix’s Roosevelt Row Arts District. Skye on 6th is scheduled to be completed in 2023, and it will feature 309 apartments, 6,500-square-feet of ground-level retail space, and a 78,000-square-foot parking garage with 201 spaces. With a wellness-focused design in accordance with LEED Silver certification standards, it’s going to be a terrific addition to the city.

The Cubes at Country Club Hills

With all of the recent increase in demand for warehouse developments along with the rise of e-commerce, we’ve been hard at work on a lot of projects like The Cubes at Country Club Hills. It’s currently being developed by CRG and it’s our first industrial development in the Chicago market, but it’s also pushing the boundaries on another front. We’re putting a lot of emphasis on hiring minority and women-owned firms to help us build it and opening opportunities for historically underrepresented groups to participate. It directly relates to our efforts as part of Clayco Rising to recruit more diverse candidates onto our teams and further strengthen our partnerships with minority and women-owned subcontractors and suppliers. The model behind this project is one that we’re going to continue to implement and build on, and it’s another big step we’re taking to help increase inclusion and equality in the construction industry.

Uzun + Case

Uzun + Case has been a trusted collaborator on many of Clayco’s projects, and it’s a prime example of the kinds of firms that we like to work with. Since its founding in 1993 by Tamer Uzun, Jim Case, Martin Cuadra, and Larry McDowell, Uzun + Case has grown to become one of the largest structural engineering firms in the country, and its extensive portfolio of projects is a testament to its excellence and commitment. With offices in Atlanta, Georgia, and Raleigh, North Carolina, Uzun + Case maintains a presence in two of the country’s key building markets and has worked on a wide variety of commercial, civic, and institutional buildings that are shaping cities for the future.

Siebel Center for Design at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Of all the building projects we work on at Clayco, some of my favorites are the ones that we do for universities and higher education institutions, as they really make an impact on the lives of students and the next generation of leaders who will drive our future. We actually just completed construction on a great new project on the campus of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and it definitely fits into our mission to go “Beyond These Walls.”

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My Mock Death is Today

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The concept of earning is an instinct of mine

My first job was stamping cans at a little grocery market in exchange for candy at about 10 years old. The concept of earning was an early instinct of mine.

During my teen years, I had a car wash on my home driveway, after which I started doing small painting and odd jobs at neighbors’ homes for extra money, but mainly to avoid mowing my own yard by paying the kid down the street to do it. I could make more money doing the other jobs, which allowed me to pay him very little to do something I didn’t want to do that was much more time-consuming. Looking back, that was an entrepreneurial experience.