ADB BUILDING PROJECT

ADB Building Project

April 10 , 2008
It's been a much longer road than we wanted it to be, but the time was well spent. We didn't like the first bids from the contractors, but were able to use them to go through the list of things the contractors added, which included some very expensive and unnecessary things. Those eliminated, we got the bid down to where we wanted it (and could afford to make it 8,000 square feet instead of "just" 6,400), and have selected ELITE CONTRACTING GROUP to build THE COLE BUILDING. Leanna and Stephen formed an LLC on 8 April which will actually own the building (The Cole Building, LLC). Final contracts are now being prepared for signature within the next week. We hope to have architect plans by the end of April and a building permit sometime in June. That would mean a move-in date sometime in October.

Cole Building 5 (Adobe Acrobat Required)

Dec 4, 2007
We officially bought the land on 30 November, and will meet with the most likely building contractor in a few days. It will take a week or three to get the plans done, four to six weeks to get them approved by the City. In the meantime, here are the first photos. The first one is taken from the sidewalk next to Bell Avenue, looking west down what will be our driveway toward our building site. You can barely see the site itself as that tiny slice of yellow grass just to the right of center. The buildings to the left are offices for various companies, and the building in the background is a block of apartments.  The second photo is taken from the northeast corner of the lot we bought, looking south-southwest, showing the site. The cargo container on the left edge is the one mentioned in an earlier report, and the owner (who owns the building to the left in this photo) has agreed to move it two feet east to get it off of our land so we can lay a driveway through there.

Nov 28, 2007
Our project to build a new home for ADB Inc. has made progress. Yesterday, the surveyors completed the new survey of the land. It's funny, but every time a piece of land changes hands, a new survey has to be done, finding all of the corners and boundaries, just to make sure the previous surveyors didn't screw up, and to make sure that in the years since the last survey, somebody didn't build something on the land you are buying. In our case, the surveyors "found" a 40-foot cargo container on the land we are buying. (We knew it was there, just not exactly where it was in relation to the border). We should have the actual survey drawing by tomorrow. Also yesterday, the City of Amarillo green-lighted the project, allowing us to run Amarillo Design Bureau, Inc., in a zone for "general retail" even though we're not a retail business. We are a strange company (according to the building codes) in that we're not really an office (we have too much storage), not really a warehouse (we don't have trucks coming and going all day), not really a manufacturer (what we manufacture is mostly laser printing and the assembly of parts made somewhere else), not really a print shop (we don't have noisy printing presses with chemical solvents), not really a photocopy shop (we don't have the public walk in and ask for copies). They finally decided that we were ok since whatever the heck we are, we were not doing anything to annoy the neighbors. This will allow us to "buy" the land in a few days, perhaps on Friday, although the title companies that actually do the paperwork are busy on Friday and it may not be possible to get an appointment until Monday.

Nov 19, 2007
For those who have not heard about "the building project" here is an update. ADB, Inc. has been in one location since January 1999. We have outgrown it, and need to move to larger quarters. Leanna and Stephen Cole decided to use some of their retirement savings to buy a new building (more than twice as large) and move the company there. Unable to find a suitable existing building, they have contracted to buy a nice piece of land about two miles from their present office and build an entirely new building there. This building will be finished sometime in the late summer of 2008. (It takes 30 days to actually complete buying the land, 45-60 days to get a building permit, 30-60 days for delivery of the pre-engineered steel building, 60-120 days to erect it, another 30 days to build the office space, and another 30 days to move. We're hoping for July or August, but will be happy to get moved by September or October. The mailing address and telephone numbers will not change, but obviously the physical address will change. Expect updates and "construction in progress photos" in future newsletters.

Revised Floor Plan (Adobe Acrobat Required)

View our preliminary building design (Adobe Acrobat Required)