Project Rewind: Prioritizing the Needs of 275 Seniors at Clermont Park

The summer of 2008 began what would be one of the most challenging and rewarding of Pinkard Construction’s 100+ senior living project: the $41 million (over $60 million in today’s dollars) renovation and expansion of the Clermont Park Retirement Community, owned and operated by longtime partner Christian Living Communities.  

The five-year collaboration included the comprehensive renovation and adaptive reuse of 24,000 square feet of the existing campus and 163,000 square feet of new construction, all performed in close proximity to an active senior community with 275 residents plus community staff. Determined to complete this expansion with minimal impacts to the lives of residents, CLC President and CEO Russ DenBraber tasked Pinkard with formulating a construction plan that focused on resident safety, comfort and peace of mind. The resulting, though ever-evolving, construction plan was the product of intense collaboration among Pinkard, Lantz-Boggio Architects, and Clermont’s in-house physicians, administrators, and resident care workers. 

One of the products of this collaboration was regular interaction between the construction team and Clermont Park residents and staff. Pinkard field teams held weekly “Coffee with the Crew” meetings to educate attendees on construction processes, upcoming construction activities, and to schedule informative job walks. Clermont’s in-house television network was constantly updated with upcoming construction activity schedules, and Pinkard provided regular updates in the Clermont newsletter. Our team was proud to be on a first name basis with the numerous residents they interacted with, many of whom regularly sent thank you notes to the Pinkard crew, thanking them for their many acts of kindness. 

One of the project’s major logistical challenges was how to renovate and expand Clermont’s kitchen and dining room without interrupting the facility’s responsibility to feed over 300 people three meals a day, seven days a week. Pinkard’s solution was to bring in a temporary modular kitchen large enough to allow the food and beverage staff to continue uninterrupted food service.  

Because the incredibly tight site forced construction crews into residents’ daily lives, Pinkard placed a huge emphasis on resident safety, traffic control, and the minimization of dust, noise, vibrations, and outages. As a result of our thorough communication plan and time-tested wayfinding, security fencing, and construction isolation strategies, Clermont Park enjoyed an incident-free construction experience. And when unavoidable outages had to be scheduled, Pinkard sponsored fun activities and outings for the affected residents. 

This major expansion project came with massive site utilities upgrades that revealed a “spaghetti bowl” of tangled underground piping that was nearly impossible to decipher. Working with local authorities having jurisdiction (AHJ), Pinkard and the owner/design team were able to reset the design and construction plan to incorporate replacement of much of the tangled utilities and infrastructure, saving the owner more than $100,000 and keeping the construction schedule intact. 

Also during the redesign, Pinkard took advantage of a changing market to re-bid the permit set package and realized a credit to the owner of $1.6 million. The savings included our fee to re-bid the entire package and included all revisions requested by the City authorities. 

Because of Clermont Park’s significant skilled nursing component, our field and project management teams relied upon their deep relationships with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, to jointly solve a variety of important issues ranging from the flammability of elevator hydraulic fluid to “bomb proofing” an oxygen storage facility, to solving structural constructability and code issues in the field to ensure resident comfort and safety. 

When faced with serious permitting problems that jeopardized the budget and schedule of the entire site, Pinkard re-analyzed the schedule and found ways to trim two months from the 13-month schedule by re-sequencing some critical path areas. Throughout our collaboration with the owner/design team, Pinkard regularly applied our comprehensive Senior Living Checklist to confirm that important quality of life issues remained in the design. 

“I can only say positive, wonderful things about my experiences with Pinkard,” said Cherie Neerhof, Associate Executive Director at Clermont Park. “When we hit very challenging issues, Pinkard had a way of making things appear to run seamlessly. That residents didn’t feel stressed at all or were even aware that Pinkard was in the middle of overcoming big challenges.” 

CLC’s Russ DenBraber agreed, saying “Pinkard’s expert sequencing made a huge difference in our ability to meet our deadlines and keep our residents happy, and they were unbending in their insistence that the subcontractors provide the highest level of quality.” 

As a result of Pinkard’s on-time in-budget performance, Associated Builders and Contractors awarded the Clermont Park Campus Expansion a first-place National Excellence in Construction award, our industry’s highest honor.