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BUSINESS NEWS THE DREVER COMMENCES “PARTHENON” MARBLE MAKEOVER Drever Capital Management’s 1.5-million-square-foot redevelopment of the former First National Bank of Dallas building in the heart of the Dallas Central Business District has commenced removal and restoration of the historic marble slab panels on the building’s façade. The highest quality materials available were sourced during the construction of the historic building, originally importing the dense, handsomely veined white marble slabs from the same quarry in Greece as the marble used to build the still-standing Parthenon. Steve McCoy, president of Drever Construction Co., worked with lead architect, Merriman Anderson/Architects , and contractor, Andres Construction, to develop a solution to remove, restore, and reinstall the slabs with new connections that will secure and stabilize the tower’s exterior for decades to come. The process provides a surplus of marble and terrazzo that, to the delight of the project’s interior designers, will be reutilized in the building’s interiors. The project is scheduled to be complete by the end of 2018. “The process will allow this irreplaceable stone to not only be restored to its former glory, but remain as a sound element of the building’s structure for many years to come,” says McCoy. “The fact that the team was able to find a way for the excess marble to be repurposed adds another layer of history to this already impressive structure.” Dallas-based architects, Merriman Anderson/ Architects, are the lead architects and

designers designing the reimagined interior and exterior, and are delighted with the decision to recycle the existing marble panels. “The original marble is from Mount Pentelikon, a mountain range located in Attica, Greece,” says Aimee Sanborn, AIA, principal, Merriman Anderson/Architects. “It’s a beautiful natural stone with wonderful veining. We were able to locate the quarry in Greece and have identified the exact species. To repurpose 100 percent of the existing exterior marble tells a compelling cradle-to-cradle story of upcycling.” The condition of the panels and the integrity of the building’s engineering necessitated the decision to refurbish the marble. Existing mechanical connections were separating from the original structure. The panels will be refurbished by cladding the natural stone to a structural aluminum honeycomb backer panel, which will insure the engineering integrity and the historical value of the original marble slabs. HyCOMB USA is responsible for the stone cutting and the application of the new structural aluminum honeycomb panel. Besides creating extra marble slabs for the building interiors, marble remnants from the cutting and cleaning process will be crushed and repurposed into terrazzo to be utilized in the elevator cab floors, elevator lobby flooring and flooring on the 9th floor amenity deck. “I commend Drever Capital Management for their unwavering commitment to the quality of this project,” remarked Jerry Merriman, AIA, president, Merriman Anderson/Architects. “Repurposing is generally more expensive and time consuming than demolishing and

replacing with new. The building’s owner, Maxwell Drever, appreciates the significance of this building to the history of downtown Dallas.” Soon after the building was acquired, the largest abatement project in Texas history was completed. More than 5 million square feet of asbestos-ridden material that included 50,000 linear feet of ductwork was removed from the building so that interior construction and the marble restoration could begin. Now known as THE DREVER, the skyscraper was originally designed by architects George Dahl and Thomas E. Stanley and has been home to Hunt Oil, the Dallas Petroleum Club, and the fictitious J.R. Ewing’s office set for Ewing Oil in the television hit program, Dallas . The mid-century 52-story tower’s distinctive façade was often compared to the pinstriped fabric of a traditional banker’s suit because of the repeating pattern of white marble and dark gray floor-to-ceiling windows. THE DREVER redevelopment will include a luxury high-rise offering 324 residential units, a Thompson Hotel planned with 218 rooms, spa, retail, office, and destination restaurants. Maxwell Drever, chairman of Drever Capital Management, known for his team’s cost- effective multi-family redevelopments has said that he saw 1401 Elm “as a responsible rare investment opportunity for not only our family but especially for our legacy, impact investment-minded investors. It was a perfect fit for our ‘doing well by doing good’ investment philosophy of adding value to troubled properties and transforming neighborhoods.”

JAMIE CLAIRE KISER, from page 3

we push “our” way onto them from the initial call on, we are telling the client that they don’t know what they need, and we know better than they do. Can you imagine retaining some- one to help you who has already made it clear that they are always right? ❚ ❚ The project team we presented clearly likes working with each other. I am pleased to hear this. Building rapport and camaraderie on a project team is vital to presenting a unified front to clients and to co-workers. If you are ever concerned if your team is, in fact, a team, spend some time talking to them about their interactions with each other. Ask a team that’s constantly blamed for something internally to teach a lunch-and-learn and tell the rest of the group what they do and what they need in order to be successful, and how they like to interact internally and externally. Provide some vis- ibility to the “whipping boy” areas in the firm and see how that changes the conversation. Throwing colleagues under the bus to clients (even tacitly) is immediately recognized. If we’re willing to blame our co-workers, we won’t be there for our clients when they need us. Upon reflection, there’s really only one wrong answer to the question of why a client hired your firm: We proposed the lowest fee. JAMIE CLAIRE KISER is Zweig Group’s director of consulting. Contact her at jkiser@zweiggroup.com.

ness in a way that I can’t state more simply than this: They really, really care. ❚ ❚ We acted like we were part of the team from the intro- ductory call on. I had a now-client tell me that they were immediately impressed that Zweig Group consultants re- ferred to the firm on the other end of the phone as “we” and “us” instead of “you.” They said we made them feel that their concerns, questions, and values were shared, and they felt that we would take on their challenges as our own. This takes some reinforcement with your internal staff, but I visibly cringe when someone says “I” or “me” in a meeting when re- ferring to a team. “Upon reflection, there’s really only one wrong answer to the question of why a client hired your firm: We proposed the lowest fee.” ❚ ❚ You heard us when we explained our specific needs and allowed us to deviate from your normal process. This is vital to consulting in the A/E and management worlds. If we don’t hear what our clients say (and what they don’t say), and

THE ZWEIG LETTER March 12, 2018, ISSUE 1239

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