by Amy Self | Oct 6, 2022
The
Goodwill Excel Center building in South Bend was a renovation to the 1930’s building that was part of the massive Bendix Corporation Campus. In the 1960s, the building became underutilized with the fall of this specific industry.
In 2015, Ancon Construction partnered with Goodwill Industries of Michiana to retrofit nearly 21,000 SF of the building, transforming a portion of it into an adult education center. In 2021, Ancon worked closely with Goodwill after they purchased the entire building to transform the remaining 57,000 SF. Renovated spaces include an E-commerce warehouse, training rooms, office space, tech step labs, and other workshop spaces.
Location: 2721 Kenwood Ave, South Bend, IN 46628
“Once again, Ancon met our needs! I do not worry about projects when working with Ancon.”
Debie Coble, CEO | President Goodwill Industries
by Amy Self | Jan 7, 2022
The 17,000 square foot new construction building features a retail center, donation drop off and the Larry Neff Center for Career Connections. The project location serves Marshall County, which provides jobs, fosters workforce development in Plymouth.
by Amy Self | Sep 8, 2021
Ancon Construction was tasked with the renovation of a 48,000 square-foot, two-story facility, which was previously a charter school. As the Architect of Record and General Contractor, Ancon was responsible for updating the existing programmatic spaces such as classrooms, offices, and a café. The renovation involved adding additional offices, flexible classrooms, and a fresh interior design palette, as well as installing interior windows to increase transparency and bring in natural light.
The end result was a transformed community center that provides educational, cultural, and advocacy services in a versatile and functional space. The updated interior design and added spaces enhance the building’s functionality and create a warm and inviting atmosphere for users. The involvement of La Casa de Amistad volunteers was significant, as they participated in both the demolition process and the final finishes phase.
“Working with Ancon Construction was a great experience. As an organization that serves the Latino community, they took the time to understand the needs for our building and our culture. Our architectural firm out of Detroit is very diverse, and the Ancon team partnered with them perfectly. They were involved early in the design phase, helped navigate a challenging renovation, and provided great value engineering options. Once construction began, they took the time to create a schedule that worked around our volunteers who painted areas while Ancon was finishing out others. Knowing that they have diversity within their organization and that everyone at Ancon is an Owner of the company was a strong consideration when selecting Ancon Construction for the El Sueno project. I would highly recommend them.”
by Amy Self | Sep 18, 2020
Ancon was chosen to complete the Aquatic Center, cafeteria and Music Addition for Goshen Schools. The school used a design build process to determine who they would work with from seven original candidates. The original wish list from Goshen Schools before General Contractors were brought into the process amounted to being approximately $4 million over a fixed budget of $15.88 million. The Ancon team, Goshen Schools Personnel and the architects from Barton Coe Vilamaa worked together over several months to design the project to get it in budget. Many meetings were held with the school to determine what the highest priorities were and where we could cut back. It was truly a team effort to make this happen.
We were able to keep all the major components of the project through this extensive effort of value engineering. Over 100 items were scrutinized and re-designed to save money while keeping the quality where it needed to be. Equipment and materials were chosen for their low long-term maintenance costs since this was extremely important to the maintenance staff. This project was a prime example of Ancon’s ability to meet our customer’s budget. We were also able to accomplish this in a manner where even though the various departments had to give a little, in the end everyone agreed on the priorities.
“Ancon Construction was an integral part of our Design Build Team, and in working with them, we found them to be very dependable. They also exhibited high integrity, communicated well with our staff members, and were very flexible in working around our school schedules. I would highly recommend Ancon as a contractor for any school related project! We are very pleased with our new spaces, but additionally, we are appreciative of having had the opportunity to work with such a reputable firm as Ancon.”
“It is my pleasure to write a letter of recommendation for Ancon Construction Company. I was president of the Goshen Community School Board at the time we hired Ancon to be the contractor for our $17M building project. Ancon partnered with Barton Coe Vilamaa Architects Engineers and was selected during the Design Build process using a Technical Review Committee (TRC). The process narrowed the field to 7 and during the initial interview process; the Ancon/Barton Coe Vilamaa team immediately became a front runner by showing their understanding of the project and willingness to collaborate with administrators, staff and industry professionals. They moved to the final interviews with two other teams. The final design prepared by the Ancon team included the needs of the corporation, was a very high-quality design and blended with existing structures. We even appreciated their willingness to tell us we were dreaming too big and beyond our budget,” stated past President Jane Troup.
