Context & Continuity

Saint John Telegraph Journal, 4/10/6: Architects salute restoration project

By Bobbi-Jean MacKinnon
Telegraph-Journal

Irving-owned Commercial Properties Limited has been recognized by the New Brunswick Architects Association for the revitalization and restoration of CenterBeam Place.

Jack Irving accepted the certificate of recognition Saturday night on behalf of his son, company president John Irving, who was unable to attend.

CenterBeam Place includes nine heritage buildings located in the Trinity Royal heritage preservation area.

Association president Gaye Kapkin, of DFS Inc. Architects in Saint John, presented the certificate as part of the association's 74th annual general meeting.

Phase one of the CenterBeam project, along Prince William Street and half of King Street, is already complete. Interior renovations have included major structural, mechanical and electrical upgrades, leaving original brick walls and wooden ceiling beams exposed.

Phase two, which includes the second half along King Street and all of the portion facing Canterbury Street, should be ready to accept new tenants in about four months.

Commercial Properties plans to lease office space on the upper floors and continue to lease retail space at ground level.

The buildings were originally occupied by a bank, two dry goods businesses, a hardware store and a variety of mercantile businesses.

They are significant as a collection of Italianate and Second Empire style commercial buildings, all built between 1877 and 1881 after two-thirds of the city was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1877.

Saint John MP Paul Zed has commended John and Jack Irving for their vision, leadership and commitment in "breathing life" into the old buildings.

He contends the project will create employment, foster the renewal of Saint John, enhance the vitality of the city, encourage growth, add economic security to the uptown core and increase the tax base.

Last November, John Irving thanked local architect Tom Johnson for his "guidance, creativity and insight."

He also praised the hundreds of local craftsmen and artisans who have worked on the project over the past couple of years for creating "truly magnificent, outstanding work."

He also thanked his father for making it all possible. "My father has always believed in the importance of the downtown core of cities, particularly in Saint John," he said.

CenterBeam Place is named after its major tenant CenterBeam Inc., an IT solutions company.

Kâté LeBlanc/Telegraph-Journal)
Jack Irving receives a certificate of recognition for the revitalization and restoration of CenterBeam Place from Gaye Kapkin, president of the New Brunswick Architects Association. Mr. Irving accepted the award on behalf of his son, John Irving, president of Commercial Properties Limited.

Saint John Telegraph Journal, 4/10/6: CenterBeam project impresses architects

Heritage preservation work can be tricky business, says Fredericton architect

By Bobbi-Jean MacKinnon
Telegraph-Journal

Saint John's CenterBeam Place was showcased to architects from across the country over the weekend as an example of a successful heritage revitalization and restoration project.

About 32 architects, who were in Saint John for the New Brunswick Architects Association's annual general meeting, toured the uptown facility with lead architect Tom Johnson on Saturday.

"We want our members to take high-level knowledge home with them for use on heritage properties in their own communities," said association president Gaye Kapkin, of DFS Inc. Architects of Saint John.

Any architect who does business in the province, not just those who call New Brunswick home, have to be members of the association, she said.

Ed Goguen, of Goguen and Company in Fredericton, was impressed by what he saw.

"It's a very nice project," he said of the block of historic buildings being rehabilitated by Irving-owned Commercial Properties Limited.

He pointed to the installation of elevators, a modern heating system and ventilation system as examples of work that's been done while still maintaining the historic integrity of the buildings bound by Prince William, King, Grannan, and Canterbury streets.

Heritage work can be tricky business, said Mr. Goguen, an architect for 25 years. The goals of a client and historic preservationists are often at odds and the architect is usually "caught in the middle."

It's also very expensive and government funding has been lacking, he said.

Meanwhile, the latest push for so-called green buildings, or energy-conserving buildings, has made the work even more complicated, said Mr. Goguen.

Drafty old windows, for example, are easier and cheaper to replace with new replicas, but heritage groups prefer that original windows be maintained.

"I'd like to do more (heritage work), but it's a real challenge," Mr. Goguen said.

Peter Fellows, of Fellows and Company in Fredericton, agrees.

He recalls bidding on a job on a federally owned building in Fredericton and "butting heads" with the officials in Ottawa. It was an early 1900s building with a 1950s extension. Mr. Fellows wanted to tear off the addition because he felt it had ruined the original building. But new guidelines prohibited that because the addition showed the evolution of the building over time.

"I don't think you'd get every architect agreeing on that," Mr. Fellows said.

Even CenterBeam Place, which he described as "well done," didn't follow all of the guidelines. It couldn't, he said.

In the lobby of 14 King St., for example, four esthetically pleasing wooden columns probably shouldn't have been covered up, said Mr. Fellows, who's been in the business for 34 years.

But the original cast iron columns underneath weren't strong enough to hold the new floor loading of the building.

"There has to be more give and take between what the pure people want and what's real, what's feasible," he said.

With phase one of CenterBeam under his belt, Mr. Johnson, of Thomas Johnson Architect Inc., admits the work along Prince William Street and half of King Street has been a balancing act.

"The government is offering money for conservation, but sometimes, on a big project like this, conservation is not really how you want to go."

The new brick wall that faces the Grannan Street courtyard, for example, was the "dingy back end, service yard and parking lot.

"Historically to conserve that would have been pointless. It wouldn't have given it the lift that it really needs," he said, noting that the courtyard is the focal point of the project.

"We had to do some things for the good of the project which were not really what the federal government had in mind" and didn't qualify for funding.

Still, Mr. Johnson, who blushed at the applause at the end of the tour, is clearly proud of the work to date. "It's been a tough job bringing these buildings back to life, let me tell you."

Phase two, which includes the second half of the portion of CenterBeam Place facing King Street and all of the Canterbury Street side, should be ready to accept new tenants in about four months, he said.

Dianne VanDommelen, of Architects Four in Moncton, is anxious to apply what she learned about the project to work her firm is doing for the Association Regional de la Communaute francophone de Saint-Jean (Saint John's regional francophone association) on the old Bank of New Brunswick building at 125 Prince William St.

ARCf hopes to use the five-storey building, located in the Trinity Royal heritage preservation area, for a variety of French services, including a live-music club, a bistro or café-style restaurant, retail space, a welcome centre, office space and meeting rooms.

Renovations to the 14,000-square-foot heritage building are expected to cost more than $1 million.

Mrs. VanDommelen, in the business for 22 years, could not say whether ARCf plans to apply for federal funding, but "there are some basic good principles to follow" on heritage projects, she said. "It's made me more aware."

The 74th annual general meeting of the architects association also included a Building Green in 2006 trade show and educational workshops.

Architects attending the New Brunswick Architects Association’s annual meeting took a tour of the newly restored CenterBeam Place Saturday. They ended the tour here, in the courtyard on Grannan Street.

Shared Values, Shared Success
Kevin Francis

President and Chief Executive Officer

CenterBeam, Inc.

Good afternoon everyone. I’m delighted to be here today because I believe this is the most important group of business people in the world at the most important moment in economic history meeting on the most important topic. We – all of us right now – are riding atop the biggest business opportunity of the century, and the most important topic is success. I want to share with you what I believe to be the key to success in a shared services economy.

Just in case your toes aren’t already curled in excitement about our times and this opportunity, let’s review where we are.

There are three megatrends converging to create an amazing opportunity for us.

Download a .pdf of Kevin's Speech

Global Atlanta, 3/31/6: California Firm Outsources to Eastern Canada

When Kevin Francis, a native of Nova Scotia, was hired as CEO of a California-based information technology management company in 2002, he had many valid reasons for setting up an outsourcing center in his native eastern Canada, he told businesspeople in Atlanta last week.

Press Release, 3/28/6: CENTERBEAM CEO ADDRESSES WORLD’S LARGEST SHARED SERVICES CONFERENCE

Francis Speaks on “Shared Values, Shared Success”
March 28, 2006, San José, Calif. – Kevin Francis, CenterBeam’s president and chief executive officer, will be today’s luncheon speaker at the tenth annual Shared Services Week, the world’s largest shared services conference. “Shared Values, Shared Success,” is Francis’ first-person account of how relationship-based service businesses succeed when they are built on a foundation of shared values.

“Selling a service is selling a relationship and a successful relationship must be founded on shared values,” said Francis. “The absence or presence of shared values will determine if a relationship will fail or prevail. And the energy invested in nurturing those values will shape whether a business will merely survive or genuinely thrive.”

The luncheon is sponsored by the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, a federal government business development agency serving the country’s Atlantic Provinces. CenterBeam’s North American Solution Center is based in Saint John, New Brunswick. Opened in June 2003 the center now employs more than 100 people.

Marketing Professionals, 3/28/6:

Lead-Generation Case Study: How Multiple Touches Can Lead to Profit Multiples
by Paul McKeon
March 28, 2006
It's Friday afternoon. Phil, the top sales rep for a technology company, is catching up on his paperwork.

Reluctantly, he picks up a stack of leads awaiting follow up. He rifles through them looking for the hot ones that have budgets and plan to buy within 90 days. He finds none. Among the discards: a prospect indicating an estimated budget of $200,000 to be possibly spent next year. Phil, however, needs to make his numbers this year and decides the decision-making timeframe is too far out. This "lead" goes into the circular file.

This is a fictionalized episode of an all-too-frequent occurrence. Salespeople are notoriously poor in following up on qualified leads. In fact, experts say, sales does not follow up on more than 70% of leads.

Why? Field salespeople in most organizations are compensated, motivated, and managed to focus on short term opportunities, not on the pipeline. Phil is paid to close—he's a "hunter," not a "farmer." But Phil's company has no one running the farm.

Contrast that scenario with the strategic marketing experts at CenterBeam, a San Jose-based IT outsourcing firm that provides sophisticated, yet affordable, IT outsourcing services on a fee-for-service basis. At CenterBeam, the closers are supported by expert "farmers" who cultivate leads into relationships.

Press Release, 3/14/6: KA-CHING!: SPOTLIGHT ON CENTERBEAM’S SUCCESS

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EVP of Sales Explains Winning Strategy

March 14, 2006, San José, Calif. – Karen Hayward, CenterBeam’s executive vice president for sales and marketing, will speak tonight at the IBDNetworks event, Getting to Ka-Ching! How to Shake Up Your Startup's Sales Strategy.

Hayward’s topic will be Time: The Most Precious Resource. She’ll explain how she has created tightly-managed sales methodologies that win business. “Too many sales people waste too much time chasing too many prospects who couldn't care less. A tightly-managed, methodical approach -- how many calls, how many emails, etc. -- ensures a more efficient use of a sales person's time and a standard methodology that can be measured and tuned over time.”