construction were also quite compelling. The new 20,000-square- foot greenhouse that was built is better suited for the business than the aging structure that was twice its size. In addition, the smaller building size enabled the business to sell off valuable frontage to help finance the project.
A complex plan to demolish the exiting buildings and erect the greenhouse in phases was devised.

“On paper, we were going to do this project in two phases, but it actually ended up being four phases in an effort to keep them open,” said Valerie J. Vig, vice president of J.S. Vig. “We built the back portion of the greenhouse up to a certain point, and once we got the greenhouse half done, we had to demolish a portion of the existing building in order to get an area to do more work.”
The on-again, off-again nature of the project would require precise teamwork from everyone involved.

THE NEED FOR TEAMWORK
“We had a great team, I think because of the communication more than anything else,” said Vig. “We got the subcontractors involved with the scheduling and let them know about all of the difficult issues that we would be approaching ahead of time. When you can do that at the beginning of a project, everyone is much easier to deal with.”

Although weekly coordination meetings with most of the trades present are not typical on a project of this size, they proved to be a vital component with the greenhouse.

“It was very important that we sat down with each trade, looked over their shop drawings and did an overview,” said Vig. “Even though everything looks good on paper, things don’t always work out that way in the field. The location of fire protection, HVAC, electrical and plumbing lines had to be planed out exactly. It probably took us four meetings to get everything straightened out so that we knew every line that was going into each elevation.” Because of the clear design that is needed for a greenhouse,

A time-honored way to determine if a person is an optimist or pessimist is to ask whether a water glass is half full or half empty. Those with an optimistic outlook usually emphasize the water instead of the void and say that the glass is half full.

Although he acknowledged that the site was quite full, John S. Wilkie of Yops and Wilkie Architects, A.I.A., was hardly optimistic about the prospect of designing a greenhouse for Ray Hunter Florist in Southgate.

The business consisted of two barns and one main building that was actually a conglomeration of several attached buildings designated as work, retail and greenhouse spaces. Wilkie’s almost impossible task was designing a new greenhouse that could be built on the extremely small site without forcing the business to close, even for a single day.

“I was scratching my head trying to figure out how we were going to pull this off,” said Wilkie. “There was a lot of pre-planing before we ever put pencil to paper.”
Fortunately Wilkie was able to consult with J.S. Vig Construction Company, the pre-selected general contractor, and an expert team of subcontractors to determine a way to phase the project while keeping Ray