Back to In the News pageWhen Poulsbo construction company owner Don Drury went to bid on the new 60,000 square foot Nextel Call Center building in Bremerton, he had some heavy competition. He also found that he had some convincing to do as well.
Despite nearly three decades in the business, Drury said it wasn’t an easy sell on his part.
“They thought they were going to have to get a Seattle-based company in on this,” he explained, noting that there were concerns whether a Kitsap County business like Drury Construction could handle the heavy workload within the strict timeline.
His business, which was located on Bainbridge Island for 25 years before relocating to Poulsbo three years ago, got the bid and is proud of the progress it has made on the Nextel center.
“We proved not only that we were the most economic business to do this but we proved we could do it locally,” he said, adding that the structure is about an acre and a half in size.
Drury crews have been at the site since March and expect to wrap up the concrete weatherproofing work this May.
“We’re going like bananas,” Drury said last week, noting that he had 12-14 employees working full time on the $2.7 million project. “Right now, we’re a week ahead of schedule --- I’d like to add that we’ve gotten some breaks in the weather.”
Doing a project of this magnitude is definitely a feather in the Drury hard hat, but getting it done right, on time and locally is even more important to the business, he agreed.
We’re doing it with all local subcontractors as well,” Drury explained. “We had to prove to the owner that there are people in Kitsap County that can perform and we’re proud of the fact that they don’t have to go to Seattle to get quality.”
Once open, the Bremerton Nextel call center will employ 500 workers.
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