2012 University of Florida BCN Golf Tournament

Paying it forward...............

Nearly 80% of the management of J. Raymond Construction comes from the prestigious Rinker School of Building Construction at the University of Florida.

To honor the school and to "pay it forward" for the students and the construction industry leaders of tomorrow the University of Florida Building Construction School Alumni Club of Central Florida staged a golf tournament at Orange County National Golf Club on April 19th.

With over 140 golfers participating the local Alumni Club was able to raise over $30,000 for the Rinker School. John Sofarelli, J. Raymond President, and the incoming Chairman of the School's Advisory Board thanks everyone for coming out and contributing to this very worthwhile effort. Dr. Robert Ries, the Interim Director of the School, thanked the local alumni club and accepted the funds on behalf of the Rinker School of Building Construction.

Preconstruction Minute with Jon Roemer

2011 was a very busy year for the J. Raymond Preconstruction and Estimating Department. In 2011, we completed 127 Competitive Bids, Negotiated Bids and Budgets. These projects consisted mainly of our ‘bread and butter” projects such as The Fresh Market, Whole Foods, Publix, Wal-Mart, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Kohl’s, Medical Office and Façade Remodels.

Competitive Bidding: The competitive arena comprised about 80% of the work that we procured last year. While developers continued to benefit from record low prices for their construction projects throughout 2011, they are acknowledging the associated risks. The stress levels on subcontractors continued to grow and we saw many tried and true subcontractors fail last year. Balancing the need to provide the lowest possible competent bid with the risk of subcontractor remains our biggest challenge on bid day.

Negotiation: We were very fortunate to have been in a position to negotiate 20% of our work in 2011. Many of our developer partners are very well aware of the quality, cost and schedule risks associated with utilizing low cost unqualified subcontractors on their projects. In the projects that we were able to partner with our client in a negotiated fashion, we were able to better scrutinize the past history and current health of the bidding subcontractors while still providing competitive pricing to our client.

Budgeting: We understand how difficult the acquisition of financing has become and how critical having accurate budgeting is to the procurement of financing as well as the healthy development of the project. In 2011, we constantly helped our clients develop their pro-formas and incorporate as much detail as they could provide into our budgets.

At J. Raymond, we function best when we are allowed to assist in the development of a project early on. We offer our clients quick baseline budgets to establish a solid starting point and enable them to determine project feasibility. Further, we provide value engineering assistance throughout the development of the project until we have the permit documents ready to submit at or near our client’s desired budget.p>

We have extensive historical data as well as the tools in place to prepare budgets ranging from square foot costs to detailed take-offs depending upon the information and documentation available.

Please let us know how we can help you with your 2012 projects.

Jon Roemer

Preconstruction Services

The Current State of Retail

Since 1989 J. Raymond has built the majority of its business in the retail market. Starting with tenant build-outs we grew to do huge centers of hundreds of thousands of square feet.

In recent years we have not seen many (any, really) of that size as the major anchors all became much more selective of sites and pushed many of the commitments already made into the future as they reassessed their real estate strategies.

In recent years we have managed to stay at the forefront of the retail market. The size and type of work that we are doing has certainly changed, though. Instead of large new projects much of our work now is infill, tear down/rebuild, additions, renovations and retracing the path to our roots, interior build-outs.

Our experience has been that even in a recession people have to eat. We have grown our grocery store portfolio to include Publix, Aldi, Fresh Market, Whole Foods and Wal-Mart Neighborhood Markets.

In addition to grocers, some of the other active retailers we see in the southeast include Dick's Sporting Goods, Kohl's, Golfsmith, HH Gregg, Marshall's, Ross, JoAnn Fabrics, Gordon Food Service (GFS), WAWA and of course the biggest of all, Wal-Mart.

We are even seeing some of the larger projects which have been sitting on the sidelines for years coming back to life.

Retail will continue to be an integral part of our business. 2012 looks as though it will be much of the same as far as types of work available but, hopefully, there will be more of it and even a sprinkling of a few larger projects thrown in for good measure.

Please let us know how we can help you with your 2012 projects.

Paul Graham

Business Development

The President's Corner

Welcome to our first ever Electronic Newsletter. Each month we will share with you what is happening at J. Raymond as well as featuring articles about projects, clients, employees, industry happenings, technology advancements and general information meant to enhance your business and your life.

Our business has evolved over the last several years in light of the unsettling economic times. Some of the steps we have taken to insure our continued success and financial well being that I would like to share with you include:

• Entering new markets. We are actively involved in the medical industry and have completed numerous Medical Office Buildings and suite interiors including work that falls under the jurisdiction of AHCA (Agency for HealthCare Administration).Warehousing/Manufacturing are an integral part of our product offering as is Church and Non Profit work.
• Greatly expanding our Geographic Coverage. Over the last four years we have gotten licensed in South and North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Virginia, Alabama and Louisiana and are actively working in South Carolina and have started a project in New Orleans.
• Invested in new technology. We have brought on an expert in BIM (Building Information Modeling) and have successfully implemented its use on a large complex project here in Orlando. It is an excellent tool for identifying "clashes" in the documents well before you encounter them in the field.

As we head into a new year we are thankful for the many friends we have made, the projects we have built and the clients that have allowed us to build them as well as all of our employees who have worked so hard to make it happen.

I hope you enjoy this, and future, issues of our newsletter and, as always, let us know how we can help you.

John Sofarelli

President