Growing Your Social Capital

This assignment was very difficult for me. My idea wasn’t really anything normal or ordinary, you could say. The idea I have been pitching from the beginning of the semester has been underground parking garages to minimize the parking problem in large populated areas specifically Gainesville. My overall idea was to build underground parking garages about two levels deep and very wide. For starters Gainesville is above sea level (a lot of people seem to ask) although there are some areas that are not, so my company would have to run a lot of test just to make sure the areas we are building the garages will have space. Also my garages will only be of 2 floors or less. We would create more space by expanding sideways (horizontally) rather than downwards (vertically). My plan is to make money through the decals but we are a construction company, not a service provider. So businesses, schools or even the government would contract us and pay us to make these garages and it would be up to them to monitor them. I imagine my idea will be very costly but again, it would be up to whoever wants the garages built decide how they want to make a profit if they want to make a profit. Construction period is not environmentally friendly, usually when contactor go out to build something they start by clearing the land. My company will sadly have to do that, but we will also create a natural environment above the garages. This was we will be using a space efficiently and giving back to the environment as well.  

Domain expert:

Who:

Benmar Construction in Ocala, FL

How:  I called their office because one of my parents neighbors contracted them to remodel his kitchen.

Conversation:  

Q: Can you tell me a quick summary of what your company does and what it stands for?

A: We are a local construction company located here in Ocala.  We are family owned, ran by father and son, the Bennett’s. We have an amazing team that just loves what they do and they are great at it. We care very deeply about our customers and we try to make their dreams a reality. We relly heavily on our customers experience and reviews we are a very hands on team that tries to create relationship of trust and honesty with our customers.

Q: Have you guys ever done parking garages?

A: no we haven’t. We mostly focus on residential and commercial construction but on a smaller scale. You mentioned you heard from us because you neighbor used our services for his kitchen? Well we do projects of that sort but we do, do small to medium commercial building, or renovations or remodels. For example not that long ago we were the ones contracted to remodel the local DSW Shoes here in Ocala but we also do family homes.

Q: How do you go about getting customers?

We have been in the business for over 20 years now, things have changed a lot from the late 90s and early 2000s but we have always relied heavily of just simple word of mouth. We started with small scale renovations and we have grown this big today and I think out work ethic has a lot to do with that. Of course we keep up with social media, we have a website and a Facebook page. We even have a blog where we post articles relating to our business

Market expert:

Who:

McGurn Management Company

How:  I googled them and I called their office

Conversation:

Q: Could you tell me a little bit about the types of projects your company takes on?

A: We do a range of different stuff, from apartment complexes, condominiums, retail spaces, offices parking garages, and parking lots as well. We are well known here in Gainesville because of our redevelopment project on the southeast quadrant here in Gainesville it included 144 apartments, and 85,000 square feet of offices and retail space. In 2000 than we did 140,000-square-foot Union Street Station containing 51 residential condos above 40,000 square feet of offices above 35,000 square feet of street-level retail space.

Q: You mentioned parking garages, could you tell me more about that? My idea for school is underground garages to maximize space in populated areas.

A: That’s an interesting idea, I’ve never heard of that. But yes I can tell you about are parking project, but they have all been above ground. There are many variables to a project of that kinds, the most important one being size. The average garage is 145,000 sq ft. these are expensive projects you know, you need a very knowledgeable contractor, architect maybe a team of subcontractors, and all of this has to be done in a reasonable time frame. It is also going to entail a great deal of site preparation and machinery costs. So a “average” 5 story garage, each floor about 10 ft high is going to cost around 8-9 million dollars.

Supplier:

Who: The internet

It’s really hard to find someone who sells things that parking garage needs. Because a parking garage needs a lot of stuff. Steel framing, concrete block, brick ect. All plumbing, machinery, carpentry, and electrical services as needed. Not to mention labor. All in all it’s a big job that require a lot of money and a lot of knowledge. 

Reflect:

All in all this took a lot of time and effort. My idea is just an idea, there no way I could pull such a project off on my own at this stage in my life, but it’s interesting to note all that goes into just things we see every day. I think this exercise really helps us keep an open mind and allows us to realized was real entrepreneurship takes.