Two more awards for the Sagamore team.

The Massachusetts chapter of the Associated Builders and Contractors has cited Sagamore for its part in the award-winning Massachusetts Maritime Cadet Residence Hall project. According to the ABC, the award is designed to recognize the outstanding talent that exists among merit shop contractors. Sagamore was recognized for its work with Erland Construction on the project.

Also, the Better Business Bureau has announced that Sagamore will receive its highest rating, A+. According to the bureau, the rating "represents BBB's degree of confidence that the business is operating in a trustworthy manner and will make a good-faith effort to resolve any customer concerns." The award enhances Sagamore's reputation in the light commercial and residential markets where its Service Group operates.

A historic building gets a new life.

Sagamore has completed a design/build project for a steam boiler plant in the old Waltham (MA) Watch factory, which will provide the HVAC needs for a 400,000-square-foot multi-use facility under construction for Berkeley Investments of Boston.

First serving as a consultant to assist in the development of options for handling the revitalized building's HVAC needs, Sagamore was then asked to design a central steam plant and act as prime contractor on this project-hiring electricians and general trades to support the Sagamore team on the project.

Because the building was already occupied by office tenants, Sagamore did as much of the work as possible off-site and limited disruptive on-site work to early mornings or weekends. Turnover was achieved in advance of the milestone date.

Sagamore Academy has a new course offering for foreman.

Added to the listing of course offerings by Sagamore's in-house training academy is a new course designed specifically for project foreman. The National Center for Construction Education and Research (NCCER) Construction Project Supervision course covers the range of skills needed for construction management, human relations, problem solving, safety and quality control, documentation, planning and resource control.

The first class of 20 foreman are taking advantage of this course offering, modeled on a course taught at Clemson University's Outdoor Laboratory Facility.

Sagamore completes HVAC/Plumbing for Tufts biosafety lab.

Work was recently completed by the Sagamore team on a biosafety laboratory at the Veterinary School of Tufts University. Gilbane Building Co. served as GC for this Grafton, MA facility which contained complex mechanical/plumbing/safety systems to meet the needs of the National Institute of Health.

One of the challenges of the project was to coordinate a highly unusual amount of mechanical and plumbing system redundancy required to ensure the labs operate safely. Approximately 70% of the facility area is devoted to these intricate systems. The quality of the equipment and its performance was reviewed by design engineers and consultants from the NIH. Sagamore's team worked closely with the customer design team throughout the process to discover the best solutions for their needs.

Sagamore "merged" their project scheduling system with that of the general contractor to establish schedule benchmarks that were monitored by all parties. Sagamore also used data from the designers and the GC as a starting point for its own 3D CAD fabrications drawings to allow most piping to be assembled off-site- reducing manpower congestion during the construction period within a fairly small building footprint.