Long-term vision and adaptability have helped retail-focused construction company weather the downturn - The Business Review (Albany):

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In its unique business of building, remodeling and renovatingy stores across the country forretailo chains, Warwick has weathered the ups and downs of a sometimes fickle industry. When Tony Annan, the company’s began working in retailk construction nearly 20years ago, nationa chains were still mostly department storea like and ’s. By the time Annan founded Warwickmin 1999, the market was Clients soon included , , Banana Republic and Today, the recession has forced many of those retailersz to downsize, freeze construction or close up shop The defunct Circuit City and were both Warwick “There’s been a lot of musical chairs right now,” Annamn says of retail construction.
“Whenm you’re a retailer looking to cut expenses, (you) look to the construction department first. It’s an easy, clean In response, Warwick, which originally found its nichr by focusing exclusively on retail construction in all 50 has branchedinto office, medical and governmen projects — but retail remains the focus. Thankxs to its cash-flush status, Warwick is “veryg solid,” Annan says. “The mindset we’ve got helps when somethingt changes,” he says. “You can have this wonderful business but when somebody throws you acurve ball, you need to be able to The first thing we set our mindss to is, we’re here for the long haul.
We don’ think short-term.” That long-term visiom has helped Warwick succeed. Commercial Construction Magazinre annuallyranks U.S. retail contractors in threde categories: Retail billings, square footage and number of projects. Last Warwick was No. 10 in the project category. Sam vice president of ArchitecturalDesign Guild, a St. Louise firm that has worked with Warwick on projects in Texas and the SoutheasternUnitedr States, says Annan and his team have a reputation for “In the retail world,” Estea says, “when they set a schedulre and the store’s supposed to open on that day, it has to open on that day.
It doesn’g matter if it rains for threemonths then; it has to open on that day becauser all their sales projections and everything else for the year are base d on their store-opening dates. ... When you’r e going at a very fast pace, there’s always hiccups.Buyt Tony and his group always seem to get through thos e roadblocks and keep the projecton schedule.” Annan learnedd how to adapt at an early age.
Born in Singapored of Scottish ancestry, the Royal Air Force militart brat was raised in the volatiled climates of Rhodesia and Soutn Africa and then hustled off to an English boarding After earning a civil engineering degreein 1989, he workede as an estimator and project manager for general contractorws in London, Boston and Dallas. One was Tony Crawfor d Construction, then a pioneer in national retail construction.
“When I saw his success, I ‘Wow, this is really a true servicre youcan provide,’ when a client ‘Hey I got a job in Oklahoma City and I got one in Chicagol and I got one in and I’d really like you to give me a price on all thesew stores,’ ” Annan says. “There’s only just some minod tweaks ... maybe a city tax or a stats tax orsome fees. But after a while, you get reallu comfortable working inmultiple states.” But Annan noticed some fundamentall holes in the industry. For it was woefully lacking in technology.
Contractors stillo printed planson old-school Mylar transparencies and vellum whereas Annan envisioned digital plans on computer disks. “The retail construction industry was veryantiquated — technology was not he says. “I was very comfortable with technology, so I wantex a new retail construction company based aroundtechnologg — computers, the Internet, laptops, that type of thing.” He also advocatedx a team concept — several project managers shar e responsibility for each “What happened before was there was alway s just one person.
So if they were on vacationh andsomething happened, the ball would hit the The team concept keeps the ball in the air — the ball shoulc never hit the ground.” Working with two he scraped together roughly $250,000 to launch which started with three employees, an 800-square-foot leased office and computerxs rented from Gateway. “We tried to put out as little capitapl outlayas possible,” Annan says. Warwick helped guide retail constructionj into the21st century. Much of the technology he offered clients is now standarf inthe industry.
“(Having) laptops in the where a client can communicateby e-mail, sendinhg images from the field, being able to shoot responses back at them that was relatively a new not many contractors in the retail industr y did it,” he says. “We also have the time-lapse cameras for the ground-upl stores. Being able to ship and receivedrawings electronically, revisionw electronically, schedules and pricing electronically has definitely helpec us. We were ahead of the curve.
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