Pre-Construction

So. We own a warehouse. Without going into too much detail, after several months of negotiating, a collapsed retaining wall, some mold, and a Certified Survey Map, we finally closed on our building on September 30th.

Now we have to turn it into a squash club. At least part of it. The building is 15,000 square feet and has one existing tenant, Yahara Bay Distillers. The fine folks at Yahara Bay make artisan gin, vodka, rum, apple brandy, and lemoncella. When the 90 gallon still is running, the whole area has a wonderful, heady aroma to it.

Madison Squash Works will be using about 6500 square feet of the building, or a little over half the remaining space in the building. The challenge now is to transform an empty, floorless shell of a building into the premier squash club in Wisconsin. Since it will be the only squash club in Wisconsin, being the premier club shouldn't be too hard. There are other places with courts, but this is going to be way better.

Today was the pre-construction meeting. The general contractor, James, and all the subs--plumber, mason, electrician, HVAC guy, sprinkler system guy, as well as the architect were there. We all stood around, kicked the dirt, looking at the ceilings, and talked about who was doing what and when and who needed to be out of the way before the next person starts. Turns out one of the biggest challenges is that the ceiling height is around 24 feet at one end of the building and 34 feet at the other. Seems like everyone but the plumber is going to have to be up on a lift half the time.

The plumber starts on Tuesday of next week along with an excavator. Plumber has to build some trenches and then stub out all the drains and stuff . The electrician is going to be doing some work alongside the plumber so he can share some of those same trenches.

Once those guys are done, the excavator has to lower the level of floor down a good bit before they can pour the concrete. The court area has to be on a 5-inch slab, and where the court walls are going to be, the concrete will be a full foot thick to be able to bear the weight. The things you learn when building a squash club.