When Glasgow Caledonian University decided to renovate its Continuing Professional Development Centre it turned to Clark Contracts, one of Scotland’s major regional contractors, to undertake the £1m plus contract.

Following an ambitious alteration and refurbishment project costing over £1m, the two-storey building has re-opened as a flexible space comprising seminar and conferencing facilities, along with office accommodation for the university’s development office, marketing and PR team and international office.

A very tight timescale for completion of the project, dictated by the academic timetable, meant that the traditional approach of different trades coming on site one after the other was not possible. As a result, during the 16-week project up to 50 skilled men from as many as ten different trades were working side by side on site to create the state of the art facility.

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The first and second floors of the building were closed during the work, which involved stripping back the entire first and second floors to the original frame and rebuilding from the ground up. However, the ground floor internet café remained open and fully operational throughout the project.

As well as providing conference facilities to the 14,000 plus under and post graduate students the refurbished building provides high quality research, consultancy and training services for local, national and international businesses and organisations.

Douglas Little, Estates Manager at Glasgow Caledonian University, said: “We have worked with Clark Contracts on previous capital projects and were confident that they would produce a high quality job, that met the tight timescale and within budget. They brought to site a highly skilled team and we are delighted with the finished result.”

Eighty per cent of Clark Contracts’ business is repeat business, something the company puts down to its policy of working with a tried and tested group of subcontractors with specialist skills who understand Clark Contracts.

Speaking about Clark Contracts supply chain management strategy Iain Blair, Commercial Director at Clark Contracts, said: “It’s vitally important to us that whether our customers are dealing with a Clark Contracts’ employee or one of its subcontractors, they receive the same attention to detail and the same focus on customer satisfaction.”

(CD/SP)