When Easton Bell Sport was looking to consolidate many locations into one, the company looked to the expertise of a team that could take it to the finish line quickly and cost-efficiently. At the recent Chicago Chapter of CoreNet Global luncheon, Brendan Kelly, principal of Avison Young, was joined on a panel by team members Karl Heitman, president of Heitman Architects, and Michael Kaufman, vice president of Peak Construction, to speak about the process they took to get Easton Bell into its new 800,000-square-foot facility in Rantoul, Ill.
For Easton Bell, the timing of the new project was critical. The sports-equipment manufacturer integrated the brokerage, architecture and construction teams in a network-modeling plan that allowed the company to design the building while the site was being selected, then work with the contractor to have the building up and running in less than a year.
First, the brokerage team narrowed down possible sites according to macro-level factors like employee location, possible speed to market and perceived risk. While the brokerage team used Google Earth to evaluate 17 final sites from 12 developers in four states, Heitman began designing the basic building and evaluating its plausibility for each site. This meant that the building was more than half-way designed before a site was even selected. This allowed the construction team to plan its processes faster and shave four months off the delivery date.
In the end, Easton Bell chose to remain close to its current headquarters in Rantoul, which gained the company about $9 million in tax incentives on its $57 million building. The new building consolidated eight other facilities into one structure that meets all of Easton Bell’s needs. It’s close to intermodal transportation, low-risk and relatively inexpensive. Through integrated project delivery and network modeling, Easton Bell was able to save significantly on its building costs.
If you missed the luncheon, a podcast and other materials will soon be available on the Chapter’s website.
