Case Studies Building for the Future

Since its founding in 1989 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Vertex Pharmaceuticals has fought serious diseases by understanding their underlying causes and going all-in to discover and develop medicines that address them. As senior director of real estate, Sean McFaul ensures Vertex has the workplaces necessary to research and develop therapies—and to attract researchers. Speaking with Blueprint […]

It’s been an unusual three years for residents of the Cypress Run apartment community in Orlando, Florida. Building by building, they’ve been temporarily moved to furnished units, leaving their furniture and possessions behind for about six weeks. The relocations are needed because contractors have been renovating exteriors of the community’s 31 buildings, including replacing the […]

MacEwan University may be in Western Canada, but the people who comprise the facilities department speak at least one word in Japanese: muda. That, explains Stephen Luyendyk, translates as waste or uselessness, terms that were anathema to him and his crew even before 2019, when an outside speaker put a catchy name to the many […]

In the heart of Koreatown, located in Los Angeles along Wilshire Boulevard, Korean BBQ restaurants, nightlife and historic architecture have all played a role in the neighborhood’s continued growth. Jamison Properties and 26-year-old Director of Construction Sandy Bole are finding new ways to build up, literally—by increasing density in what’s already one of the densest […]

The Amazing Brentwood, scheduled to open in spring 2021 in Burnaby, British Columbia, is nothing like the city bordering Vancouver has ever seen. It pierces the skyline with three glass towers, two at 60 stories, one at 54, on 8 acres. Those towers, with 1,500 residential units, rise out of a 500,000-square-foot mall and podium on top of 1.2 million […]

With its skyline views, proximity to Boston’s downtown Freedom Trail and a spot on the National Register of Historic Places, it was a housing lottery ticket Suffolk University undergraduate students could only dream of: a room at the former luxury Ames Hotel. Approaching the fall semester of 2020, anticipation was building to welcome first-year students […]

Though the subject can’t be avoided, Stephen Vedral would rather discuss something other than COVID-19. For months it’s seemed an all-consuming concern for his Northern Arizona University facilities team, giving rise to what he calls the very contagious “COVID fatigue.” He also reminds that when he assumed his responsibilities at this Flagstaff campus in the […]

Seth Katz can’t wait for the day when COVID-19 restrictions are lifted. As a lifelong automotive enthusiast and mechanical engineer, nothing would make him happier than driving his vintage BMW from his home in New Jersey down to one of his largest jobs in Washington, D.C. There, he’ll check out a major project totaling more […]