Insights

Old Meets New: Preserving the History of Buildings During Massive Renovations

For many commercial, retail, and hospitality venues in historic districts, “old” can be preferable—even premium. Some popular historic districts even put regulations in place to ensure buildings on their prime real estate maintain the historic charm that put them on the map. But historical renovations come with unique challenges. Often, these projects aim to accommodate […]

Achieving Efficiency and Value for Universities, Communities, and Hotels

At Salas O’Brien, we’ve been focusing on sustainability since well before the creation of LEED in 1995. Even without certifications and code requirements, sustainable design provides a clear long-term value for clients, and combined with the environmental benefit, the choice is often obvious. Although LEED is not the only measure of sustainability, our expertise and […]

Designing Spaces for Food, Travel, and Lodging in One of America’s Top 10 Metro Areas

Atlanta, Georgia, is exploding with offices, business headquarters, travelers, and commuters and is home to many Fortune 1000 and Fortune 500 companies, including The Coca-Cola Company, Delta Airlines, UPS, and Home Depot. Salas O’Brien has helped design and engineer many facilities in Atlanta for clients in the transportation and hospitality industries. Here are three examples. […]

Recognizing Key Leaders at Salas O’Brien

Salas O’Brien is blessed with an amazing team of dedicated and talented professionals who model excellence and embody the Salas O’Brien difference. Each year, we recognize several of these team members for their demonstrated growth in leadership, technical skills, client or team development, and project management. The following employee-owners were nominated for an executive-level position […]

Retail at Disney Springs: Helping Design Memorable Experiences at the Happiest Place on Earth

In between visits with Mickey Mouse and Cinderella, Disney World guests can shop, dine, and find evening entertainment at Disney Springs, a themed promenade with four neighborhoods. Disney Springs houses more than 150 shops and dining experiences, including several notable flagship retail locations.

Applauding California DSA's New Electronic Plan Review

Salas O’Brien designs facilities that are a part of our everyday lives, whether they are the complex facilities where we work, produce, manufacture, and create, or the places our kids go to school, the universities that educate and research, the hospitals that rehabilitate, or the facilities that power our mobile world. We’ve always worked hard […]

Why Our Change Orders Are One-Third of Industry Average

Cumulative change orders on a large building will cause construction to run anywhere from 11-15% over budget and 10-20% over schedule. At Salas O’Brien, we’ve studied our change order rate and discovered that we consistently keep our change orders below 3% of construction costs. This means that on a typical $1 million construction project with […]

How Growing Differently Puts Our Clients First

At a recent ESOP shareholder meeting, CEO Darin Anderson spoke to Salas O’Brien’s employee-owners about how the company’s core values impact our growth, and what that means for the future. Why Grow? While growth can be a worthy goal in itself, Salas O’Brien believes that growth has never (and will never) prevent us from living […]

TRS Joins the Salas O’Brien Family

Salas O’Brien is thrilled to welcome Concord, California-based Technical Roof Services (TRS) into the Salas O’Brien family.

When Commissioning Saved $900,000

At Salas O’Brien, we believe in commissioning. And though code now requires commissioning in more places than ever, we’ve always believed that the energy savings and long-term value that commissioning provide make it the right thing to do. In fact, commissioning saved a Salas O’Brien client $900,000 and resulted in an immediate payback. Here’s the […]

Interview: Partnering with the US Military

Salas O’Brien has for many years partnered with our government and military to improve infrastructure and serve our men and women in uniform. And it’s no surprise that our office in San Diego has an especially deep and long-standing portfolio in engineering and commissioning for the military. In this brief interview, Farzad Tadayon, Managing Principal in […]

Mel Kalmans Celebrates Nearly 60 Years in Industry, Announces Retirement for End of 2018

Mel Kalmans, co-founder of Salas O’Brien’s Houston office and an industry veteran of nearly 60 years, announced his retirement yesterday in a meeting with the Salas O’Brien teams in Texas and Louisiana. To ensure a smooth transition for clients, Mel’s retirement will take place at the end of 2018. Aside from Mel’s devoted family, Salas […]