Case Studies December 2018

When Jerry Merriman first got word that Merriman Anderson Architects (MAA) had been awarded a contract to restore the iconic Statler Hotel—a building which his firm had already been working on for close to a decade—he knew his firm would be resurrecting a once-proud downtown Dallas treasure. Actually finding treasure? That was never part of […]

Three major casinos abound in the greater Tulsa, Oklahoma, area, means a high-stakes arms race among them, and the need for each to adapt in an ever-evolving gaming business. This past fall, Hard Rock Hotel and Casino Tulsa ascertained it’s in the game for the long haul. Completing an extensive remodeling of rooms, some of […]

If the late John T. Adamo Sr. could see the business he started 54 years ago, his son Richard M. Adamo is certain he would be proud. Because while Adamo Group Inc. has prospered and transformed with the times, Richard Adamo insists it has held fast to values associated with being a family-run business, such […]

At 1.2 million square feet, Toyota’s new North American headquarters isn’t so much a campus as a construction colossus. Located just outside of Dallas, Texas, the 11-building complex—an amalgam of hyper-modernist architecture and go-green accoutrement—took three years to complete. Its $1 billion price tag is more than the GDP of 21 countries. But while eye-catching […]

It was a mild, mid-autumn day in Williston, North Dakota, when Mike Dolbec answered a call from Blueprint, but the friendly president of Windsong Custom Homes couldn’t talk long. For winter comes early in this northwest corner of what’s sometimes known as the Roughrider State. The mercury still in the 60s, there were foundations to […]

It’s a major part of Milwaukee’s history, the Pabst Blue Ribbon brewery that shuttered in 1996, when its bosses opted to move operations, first to Stroh’s headquarters in the western Wisconsin city of La Crosse and then to Los Angeles. For many of the ensuing years, that landmark complex in the so-called Cream City’s northwest […]

A night at the movies calls for more amenities than in years past, and the same may hold true for breakfast the next morning at a restaurant. Today’s consumer can be more demanding, and for any company to be thriving tomorrow, it had better have its eyes on the future. Which is where Jim Cornwell […]

The price of metals often dictating the ebb and flow of the mining industry, Katie Simoneau has reason to be bullish about prospects for Manroc Developments Inc. For as Mark Twain would say, there’s gold in them thar hills, and recent demand for it has been high enough for this Canadian-based underground mining contractor to […]

Originally built in 1912 and sited just blocks from the leafy hallows of Harvard Yard, the four-story Winthrop House stands as a jewel of the school’s turn-of-the-century expansion. In the building’s endless brick and the white-trimmed windows, Harvard’s federal-style aesthetic echoes like an architectural clarion call. So when Joe Umosella learned his company had won […]

Just business as usual, Carol A. De Young tells Blueprint in late October, and for customers of Countryside Plumbing and Heating Inc. in western Wisconsin and eastern Minnesota, that’s cause for comfort. Though she anticipates retiring as president, likely in 2019, De Young assures that family-owned Countryside will keep on keeping on. It’s been six […]