Macallen Building Custom Condo Gut Remodel: A Client’s Review of NEDC
We couldn’t love these clients more. Referred to us over a year ago by MGS Real Estate in Boston they came from highly professional backgrounds including engineering and were no strangers to design, construction and the various processes required to design and remodel a quality home in Boston.
They chose a condo in the Macallen building with peerless views. Some of the most beautiful I have ever seen in Boston. They opted for a gut remodel and custom design which we obliged. It was a partnership from the very beginning and they were a true joy to work with every step of the way. We consider them friends for life.
We were able to interview Deb in a candid sit down at her place while walking through it to prepare it for a professional photoshoot and media pitch. There was no preparation and we we asked her to simply speak her mind.
This is what she had to say:
“NEDC appealed to us because of the design build and I think the interactions with David (Supple) up front were very helpful too to help us understand what does that Design Build actually mean because we were coming from New Jersey. We just needed to have that total package.
How was your experience?
Excellent with a ton of exclamation points at the end of it!!! It was fun. The high standards of the team. They pushed back on us when they needed to as giving us other alternatives and choices, the collaboration, the care. I just felt like this welcoming, the magic that happened was because, and it’s not magic, it’s hard work. Joe (NEDC Project Manager) developed a very positive working relationship with the building management and our neighbors. And if it wasn’t for that, I don’t think we could have gotten through it. They saw how much how much Joe was being respectful and caring about the building and about our neighbors and making sure he was communicating when things were happening. And I think there was just a mutual respect that, you know, that that was developed that so helpful. We We love him. We love We honor him. He’s on a pedestal. We’re going to get another pedestal and put his photograph on it and go like this to it.
Because of that broad experience with a number of contractors that had the same status of being established and you know and high quality and you expect excellent results, Joe Souza stands above them in a tier all by himself. We thought we worked with some of the best. It wasn’t until working with Joe that I realized there was a whole other level.
Once construction started, things happen in the field. You know, there’s a reality that hits. You know, the best designers of the world can’t predict once you get into the space that there’s a unique corner there or there’s a there’s a pipe that’s or there’s this. So having somebody experienced and caring and with a design eye like Joe and with the respect he was able to suggest things to us but also to call Drew (Senior Designer NEDC) and say you know Drew I think this might have to change because this is what we’re finding. You’re constantly in design phase but it just changes.
One example I had just in my early personal history was when I was still in college. One of my internships was with a structural engineering firm in New York City. The structural engineers, we would get these blueprints in and that we would have to analyze them for integrity and is it going to work? Is it going to stand? And and I’ll never forget the lead architect or the lead engineer in that firm would be grumbling about the architects and he’d say, “You know what? these designers, these architects, they’re designing these arches and these fancy things and then they throw the blueprints over the wall and they expect us to make to make the things stand and make it work. It doesn’t work. So when we spoke to David about this concept of Design Build, it’s that fluidity of the designers and the construction team understanding each other’s language and challenges and knowing a space so that you go into it being pragmatic and smarter. Those conversations are critical to keeping things on that’s the other part of any DC on track on budget on time.
I mean that doesn’t happen.
People were kept saying to us, “Ah, you’re not going to get in. You’re not going to get in when they say either you’re getting like they keep telling us that we’re we were completely on track on track on time and on budget.” When does that happen in construction?
We couldn’t be more ecstatic!”
NEDC Client Deb A.
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