Abbott Building Limited

This 12 week, £567k refurbishment scheme in Warrington has been handed back on time and £5k under budget.

This rascal has been a test of our resolve but we got there.

Its a huge relief to achieve practical completion today and hand it over for fit out.

A trio of units collectively called 'The Summer Projects'

This involved relocating The Cycle Hub from one unit to another and a stand alone unit to vertically divide a unit and separate the supplies to each level.

Photos show the before and after of The Cycle Hub where we removed a suspended floor to create a level space for an incoming tenant.

The upper level of what was once a 2 storey shop, now stripped out and reconfigured into a landlords store.

We removed the staircase and lift and infilled the openings, stripped out back to a shell and installed new lighting, fire detection and sprinklers.

We also removed defective sections of screed and laid new levelling screed and constructed a new wall to the slab edge complete with mdf bumper rails.

Sometimes up and over is the only way onto a site.

Blast Away cleaning one of our shed jobs.

They may not look glamorous on the eye but landlords enabling works/shell works present their own unique problems and challenges.

Works consisted of:-

Er****on of a 1hr FR hoarding.
Removal of floor screeds.
Removal of the double height shop front.
Soft strip of previous tenants fit out, removal of the feature staircase and lift with subsequent deck infills. Capped services and installation of temporary lighting and fire alarm.
FIRAS approved passive fire stopping to new and existing structure and penetrations.

This one was a tough one due to the level of fit out and how it was constructed but it's done and handed over for fit out.

We will be on site for another 4 weeks at level 9 which we have vertically separated from level 7 to form a landlords store.

The Abbott Building Euro 24 sweepstake draw has taken place.

To avoid any suggestion of impropriety we used an online sweepstake generator.

Ruben pulled France and Lottie England.....there has been a few comments made already!

Luck of the draw, I got Slovenia....no further questions your honour.

Following refurbishment work these two trade counter units over in Doncaster have been returned to ready to let condition.

Over in Birmingham soft strip out works continue.

Removal of the feature staircase which cost £1m to supply and install at fit out stage is the task for next week. Reduced to scrap metal in 5 days!

A busy 1st week over in Derby on the former New Look and Ann Summers units.

The hoarding will complete this evening and soft strip out work is progressing nicely.

Nottingham be chilled!

Installation of the new chiller transformer has completed and handed back to the centre.

The new 11kv transformer has now been positioned in the transformer room.

It will be renergised next week and handed back to the centre.

The next one in the order book is this amalgamation of two retail units to form one enlarged shell over two floors.

Strip out back to shell, including removal of the escalator and passenger lift, removal of staircases and removal of the shopfront.

Infill the escalator and lift openings and pits. Removal of the floor screeds and installation of new screeds.

Install new secondary steel for the shop frontl and and installation of a new frameless glass shop front.

12 weeks and just shy of a £1m contract sum. It's a punchy programme and will certainly keep us busy.

All change at Nottingham.

In simple terms disconnect the existing chiller transformer and install a bespoke built new 11kv transformer.

£197k and a 2.5 week programme.

A long day to Essex and back to set this 55000sqft shed refurbishment up.

£1.5m and 20 weeks to polish this one into a new penny.

Crack on!

Another one across the line. This former Argos unit has been stripped back to shell ready for fit out.

900m2 of fit out and a 660m2 mezzanine has been stripped out, along with all the existing M&E. A new fire alarm and lighting for 'inspection only' were installed.

New gutter linings and roof sheets to cover over former roof penetrations, a blast and seal of the slab and decoration of the steel frame and the walls and that's a wrap.

Good to see this store open. Landlords enabling works to sub divide the former Chinese restaurant into 4 shells by Abbott Building Limited.

The hoarding has been erected on the last of our three retail units in Birmingham, and it's a big one!

Meanwhile over in Birmingham this little fella, Mr Brokk has made good progress in breaking out the screeds to both levels.

The fire rated hoarding has been erected over 2 nights and we're ready to go on one of three projects at The Bullring.

Proud to be supporting Chester Nomads

Chester Nomads Afc

They move out, we move in.

Strip out to shell, vertical sub division of level 7 & 9 to provide a retail shell and a landlords store.

13 weeks, £580K, lets go!

We were approached to tender this fantastic project by an architect who had got our name from an architect we work with over in Liverpool. It transpires they are life long friends from their university days!

The following is an extract from the Trust's website.

'The Callister Trust is a charity, established in 1925, promoting the welfare of girls and young women in Birkenhead. The green space it owns, found behind a high Victorian Wall on Slatey Road, has been used over the past nearly a hundred years as a place for sport and leisure activities for girls, a playing field and as a garden to teach apprentices. When the apprenticeship scheme came to an end, the space was boarded up and left to its own devices for over 10 years, until the charity was given into the care of new trustees in 2018.
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The first practical task that fell to the trustees was to have a new gate fitted to facilitate access and to announce to people nearby that the garden was coming back to life. A team of volunteers has worked tirelessly since then to clear the garden gradually revealing original borders, beds, and an assortment of paths.

By Autumn 2019 enough was cleared to welcome 200 visitors for the Heritage Open Weekend. As Spring 2021 approached the more overgrown areas at the back of the garden were emerging. These cleared areas can now be declared part of a garden, though in its infancy, with a standard lawn, a wildflower 'meadow', a vegetable garden, impromptu vegetable planters and a greenhouse. We also have a nursery orchard, a willow tunnel, bug house and campfire den all surrounded by both evergreens and a range of beautiful birch trees. More formal flower beds, interspersed with a fabulous range of hebes, are overlooked by the most magnificent of eucalyptus trees. There are lime trees and a selection of mature fig trees that trail along a wall where we have a burgeoning sensory garden.

The pond has been re-lined and is already rewilding and two cleared areas are designated for use by a girls' gardening club to be established for local young people. The garden has already offered Forest Schools workshops in partnership with GROW Wellbeing ac and is part of a project working with refugees. This has enabled local refugees and asylum seekers to work alongside volunteers in the Garden as well as attending gardening classes. The Callister Garden has also hosted six Women's Wellbeing Days which have been much appreciated by all the participants. Over 250, mainly young people, attended events during the school summer holidays this year.

Finally, an area to one side of the garden, historically home to a pavilion at the side of a tennis court, will now become home to a new sustainable Pavilion which will enable the garden to be used all year round and will sit perfectly within the garden's serene and secluded atmosphere. The planning and the early design of the 'Pavilion' was part of a collaboration with students and staff from Liverpool John Moores University. Having recently been granted planning permission, the Callister trustees are embarking on a fundraising programme to bring the plans to fruition.
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We are always looking for ways that the local community can get involved with us, so we would be very grateful if you could please follow us on social media, email us to volunteer in the garden, or donate to our garden pavilion fundraising.'

The video is worth a viewing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bw1AG7LhXDI

The people who volunteer and run the trust are a force for good and we look forward to going to site to build the pavilion for them.

PS, we love the fact the architect worked out the scale of the playmobil figures at 1:20 and so built his model at 1:20 to accommodate the playmobil figures.

Unit 14 office space ready for the PC meeting tomorrow.