It’s an exciting time for us at Milburn! We’re thrilled to share that our work on a 100-year-old building in Chicago’s art district has earned us the title of Chicago Vendor of the Year.
Arco Murray is a national design-build construction firm specializing in commercial construction and real estate. Our team has had the pleasure of working with them on six projects in 2020, culminating in the efforts on the 306 W Erie project.
306 W Erie is a seven-story, 99,396 SF structure in the River North neighborhood of Chicago, famous for its concentration of art galleries (second only to Manhattan) and excellent restaurants and nightlife. Being a destination neighborhood with a high walk score (96) also means a dense arrangement of buildings, presence of people at all times, and high visibility—challenging circumstances for any demolition job.
We went into the project with careful planning, assessing the stages of demolition based on the occupation of the building and project timelines. We wanted to preserve as much of the structure as possible while making the building ready to be turned into a specialized brick-and-timber office loft space with an added structure once our work was complete.
In addition to working in the occupied building in tight quarters in downtown Chicago, we also gutted and removed an elevator and two stairwells from the structure. Coordinating our demolition efforts around the needs of the people using the space was probably the biggest scheduling challenge, but our awesome team pulled it off without a hitch.
We kept our jobsite clean and organized while the work was going on, and worked quietly and modestly. The biggest compliment we received from Arco Murray’s PM Eric Palutsis is that he “almost forgot we were there”—a testament to the low profile kept by the Milburn team.
Palutsis also celebrated our team’s overall attitude: “I never once heard a single complaint. The Milburn team did a really great job keeping that site clean and allowing us to work elsewhere in the building. We ended up leaning on them to do a lot more work toward the end because we knew we could count on them to get it done.”
We’re so honored to receive recognition for our work at 306 W Erie. We are grateful to Arco Murray and to all of our trade partners onsite for their collaborative efforts and excellent work ethic. Congratulations to the Milburn team members who helped make this project successful! We’re so proud of the amazing people who make “Demolition Done Right” a reality!
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