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The Brody Broker Team with Keller Williams Olympic in Sequim, Wash. has grown by leaps and bounds. The surge in folks choosing to relocate to Washington State, coupled with an increase in staff to meet that demand, has convinced team owner-CEO Brody Broker to seek entirely new office space. For reasons ranging from energy efficiency to timing, he has chosen a steel building from EcoSteel to house his company’s offices.

The choice of EcoSteel is very important for The Brody Broker Team. Its current growth, along with its potential for additional expansion in the coming years, demands a building flexible enough to grow right alongside the company. The Brody Broker Team is the number one team on the Olympic Peninsula, focusing not only upon Sequim, but on its neighboring cities of Port Angeles and Port Townsend. It has boomed not only because of its experience in all the options available to buyers in the North Olympic Peninsula — whether farmland, waterfront, lakefront, city living, mountain or valley living – but due to its leader’s own reputation as top-selling individual REALTOR® in Sequim since 2006.

“Our company is growing very quickly, and we’re out of space,” Broker recently reported. “So the quicker we can decide on a space, the more money we save by having a space we can expand into. What attracted me to EcoSteel in the first place was that the company was willing to work with us to create the design. And the company also was able to produce a cost estimate quicky . . . Within days of sending them our architect’s drawings, they’d given us a cost estimate.

“The process would have taken a month longer, had [a conventional builder] had to bid the construction project out to all individual subcontractors and get cost estimates from each of them for a viable project.”

The new building, as planned, will be a single-story retail structure encompassing about 9,200 square feet in size and featuring a single-pitch roof. Replicating the look of a frame building, the aesthetics will call for brick red and steel grey exterior colors, with a medley of dark accents incorporated. The project is still in the permitting stage, but ground is expected to be broken for construction in February or March of 2022.

“It’s definitely a better way to build,” Broker says. “It will be the first metal building we’ve done. We’ve done a lot of wood frame buildings but haven’t yet done metal.”

Choosing steel
The Brody Broker Team expects it and Keller Williams Olympic will occupy the center 6,000 square feet of the building. That will leave two end caps on either side. One of those sides will be occupied by a coffee shop, the other by a property management firm unaffiliated with Keller Williams. The center will be divided into four spaces, one filled by the Brody Broker Team, the others by Keller Williams Olympic. “There are no interior walls that are structural,” Broker says. “We will not need the entire space, and that will allow us to be very flexible, using as much space as we need when we need it . . . It’s just a really simple, clean, modern design focused on energy efficiency and flexibility.”

Broker’s choice of a steel building from EcoSteel rested on several key considerations.

Simplified construction
The efficiency of a steel building extends to the building process itself, which is uncomplicated and low cost, Broker says. Steel greatly simplifies construction because separate framers, roofers, insulators and painters needn’t be hired. “You save a ton of money on interior drywall,” Broker says. “You only build your interior partition walls, so you don’t have to invest in drywall. The number of trades is greatly reduced due to the simplicity of the building. We will have a lifetime finish on our roof, a lifetime finish on our walls, and we believe that will save us money over the life of the building.”

Reduced maintenance
Companies and private individuals using EcoSteel have cited maintenance freedom as a key determinant in their choice. Because steel is an inorganic material, it is impervious to warping, rotting, splitting, cracking or infestation by termites. Like many others, Broker deemed low maintenance cost a deciding factor in his decision to build a steel office building. Extent of maintenance is reduced to little more than pressure washing the building and cleaning the gutters, he says, adding, “You don’t have to repaint or reroof. Your replacement cost of individual components is way lower over time as well.”

Natural disaster resistant
Mother Nature’s growing wrath has been more than evident in a spate of horrific natural disasters many have attributed to climate change. Steel structures have been proven to be less affected by natural disaster than traditional materials. “We don’t really experience wildfires here,” Broker commented. “But the earthquake protection is a consideration because metal buildings stand up better to earthquakes.”

Energy efficiency
The thermal insulated wall panels EcoSteel uses in its metal buildings contribute to the building’s energy efficiency, Broker says. “With the thermal insulated wall panel, you eliminate thermal bridging,” he observes. “That’s what you see when you look at a building in the winter, and you can see where the roof trusses are under the roof. Or you walk into a house and look at the walls with an infrared camera and can see each stud transmitting heat from the interior building to the outdoors. With a steel building, you eliminate thermal bridging by not having any structural members internal to wall panels.”

Looking ahead
The Brody Broker Team expects the new EcoSteel building will initially be the hub for 75 or 80 of its team members. The building’s flexibility will be critical in accommodating the team’s rapid expansion, which is anticipated to bring the team up to 100 employees within a year, Broker estimates. What he’s seen of EcoSteel thus far has convinced him he will be using the company’s services to build additional structures in the near future.

“EcoSteel has been great,” he remarks. “I’m building some apartment buildings within the next 90 to 180 days, and actually looking at doing those buildings using EcoSteel, as well as also buying their steel components for my own home.”

SOURCE:
Brody Broker, owner and CEO
The Brody Broker Team
Keller Williams Olympic, Sequim, WA
360-477-9665
brody@brodybroker.com

A $70 million Sacred Heart University ice hockey and skating arena has commenced construction on the university’s West Campus in Fairfield, Conn. The arena is the future home of the Sacred Heart University Pioneers Division I men’s and women’s hockey teams, which are members of Atlantic Hockey. Also to serve the university’s men’s club team and figure skating team, the arena is slated for a first puck drop in January 2023.

As supplier of the building’s all-important exterior steel panels, EcoSteel is playing a key role in making this dream come true for the Sacred Heart University (SHU) men’s and women’s pucksters, as well as other university ice sport participants.

Measuring 122,158 square feet, with an NHL-standard 85-by-200-foot rink, the new arena incorporates cutting-edge ice management technology. State-of-the-art locker rooms and top shelf strength and conditioning amenities are featured, as are a hydrotherapy suite, rapid-shot puck room designed for off-ice training and spaces for film study, meetings and relaxing. The university’s acclaimed figure skating team will leverage a pro-motion training harness and locker room of Olympic quality.

The arena will also serve as learning laboratory of sorts for those pursuing educational internships and graduate assistantships in the well-regarded SHU academic disciplines of sports management and marketing, sports communication and media and hospitality.

Concerts and guest lectures will be held in the facility, and hours of open skating will be reserved for students, professors, administrators and members of the community.

Distinctive look sought

When it came to choosing a company to fabricate the steel building materials used in the structure’s exterior, the architect of record chose EcoSteel from a number of other steel panel manufacturers and suppliers to provide the 16,000 square feet of metal panels featured in the exterior cladding of the arena. The building’s exterior includes an extensive elevation of aluminum curtain wall and glazing. Wherever those materials are not featured, EcoSteel panels are being installed.

“We have not worked with EcoSteel in the past,” says Matthew Buechele, with
Advanced Performance Glass, Inc., the project manager.

“EcoSteel typically does structures, but on this particular project, EcoSteel is only
providing the panels. These are three-inch insulated metal wall panels with a one inch reveal. The design team was adamant that there be a one-inch reveal in between the panels, and EcoSteel was the one company that could provide that.”

Asked why a one-inch reveal was needed, Buechele did not hesitate. “A lot of times architects just want a certain look. And I think this is going to look very cool. Typically, you have an eighth-inch reveal, and with a one-inch reveal it will have a distinctive look.”

Aside from EcoSteel’s involvement, the project has not been without obstacles. As they have been throughout the recent past, material lead times have proven challenging. The project team has been forced to proactively order materials ahead of a typical schedule.

And because the parcel on which the arena will be built is a smaller job site, staging of construction materials and supplies hasn’t been easy. “The space is limited. The West Campus is very close to the Main Campus, and it’s on a hillside,” Buechele says.

Very responsive

The installation of the EcoSteel wall panels, which stood at about a 25 percent completion mark when Buechele granted an interview, has proven a welcome respite from other headwinds often associated with construction projects. “I haven’t heard any complaints from the installers about quality or installation ease,” Buechele says.

“The installation of the EcoSteel is going very well. I’ve been dealing with [EcoSteel’s] David Scott, who’s been very responsive. EcoSteel has been very good to work with.”

The arena development and construction has involved a collaboration of several
partners in addition to EcoSteel. That collaboration features JLG Architects, the SLAM Collaborative, Dimensional Innovations and Consigli Construction.

When the inaugural first pucks get dropped on Saturday, January 14, 2023, two
nationally recognized and iconic collegiate hockey programs, Boston College and Sacred Heart University, will battle for dominance. And EcoSteel will be there as a proud part of a facility serving as a testament to the host university’s commitment to ice hockey, figure skating and indeed all ice sports – now and for decades to come.