September marks the end of summer, as tourists pack up their coolers and umbrellas to head home. Lucky for us locals, we still get weeks of great weather, no crowds at the beach, and less of that pesky PCH traffic! With that in mind, this month we are highlighting our project “The Garden” that can be seen on your drive to the beach down Pacific Coast Highway. But first, we would like to showcase our Senior Project Coordinator that helped make this project possible.
EMPLOYEE SPOTLIGHT
Valerie Rorabough has been our Senior Project Coordinator since 2014 and has been an integral part of what we do since day one. She handles everything we throw at her with a smile and maintains solid work relationships not only with everyone in our office, but with our clients as well. One of our clients, Julie Alexander, from the Brookhollow Group reached out to us and said, “Valerie is great, she is attentive, helpful and always available to help me with any questions! I enjoy working with her!” We asked Valerie what her favorite things about working here and she said, “Feeling a sense of accomplishment when I am working on a tough or challenging project and knowing when it is completed, we as a team have built something great. Having bosses like John Curci and John Somers that are kindhearted, ethical, and appreciate the work I do and care for all their employees. I enjoy my co-workers and all their different personalities. Most of all the sense of pride I have to work here at DBaC, Inc.” When she’s not here at work, Valerie enjoys spending her time riding her dirt bike, fishing, rollerblading, and working in her vegetable garden. She has celebrated this summer by getting married to her husband Michael on the 4th of July and we are so happy for the two of them!
TENANT IMPROVEMENT
One of Valerie’s most recent and toughest challenges at work has been The Garden on PCH. Valerie, our Vice President John Somers, and our Senior Superintendent Mike Key, have been working on these projects for over a year. The Garden project consisted of a major structural and architectural rework to 2 buildings to transform each to new future uses. 2902 West Coast Hwy was almost completely torn down in order to rebuild the walls and roof with a steel and wood structure that could accommodate a future restaurant use with a rooftop deck for outdoor dining. The look of the building was totally transformed to tie into the brick veneer look of the Phase 1 buildings in the center, but this one incorporated some unique elements to stand out. The windows of the future restaurant were built with elliptical arches to soften the lines. The building was also modified to accommodate a public use courtyard with a fountain and a mural. 191 Riverside Ave was the location of the old post office for several decades. After the post office was relocated to a different location in the center, this building was transformed to accommodate a multi-tenant retail use. The interior building area was also reduced in size to create an outdoor courtyard with seating and a water feature within the footprint of the old wall lines. A commemorative plaque was installed in the courtyard to acknowledge the previous location of the post office at this site. This building had a mix of the elliptical arches at the courtyard as well as some squared off openings to break up the look of the elevations. All this work was accomplished whole the rest of the Garden Center remained open for business. This means that we not only performed all of the work necessary to complete the project, but we did it while navigating traffic control and site access during construction. 