As you saw in Friday's blog posting, the St. Paul Pioneer Press did an article on blogs. Today the Minneapolis Star Tribune has an article on blogging as well. The St. Paul paper featured information on Northfield Construction Company and me. The Minneapolis paper featured other Northfield firms that are blogging.

It is good that the general media is picking up on blogs....I really like the easy format that I can "talk" to folks and get information and opinions out quickly. As noted in the Pioneer Press article, the main reason I started using a blog was because it is easy to use and allows me to update information in a timely fashion. I find regular webpages that have outdated information very frustrating.

Like many forms of technology, the newer things seem to work better and are easier. Since I entered the "technology world" rather late I was able to make use of blogs, and have enjoyed using them. It helps to live in a town full of "techy" people like Griff Wigley. Griff set me up with a blog site and continues to help me with my blogs....help that is greatly appreciated.

Posted by Ray Cox at 4:47 AM | Link

 
Today's St. Paul Pioneer Press has an article titled, Blogging for Business by Julio Ojeda-Zapata.

It features Ray, both as a MN legislator and head honcho here at Northfield Construction.

Posted by Griff Wigley at 1:34 AM | Link

 
Last Friday we were finishing up the basement excavation for Marshall and Carla Hansen's new home on Sixth Street. We ran into an old water cistern that extended below the excavation level. This required getting a load of granular material, filling the cistern hole, and compacting the material as it was installed.

Just as we were starting this task the Site Superintendent for Northfield Construction, Brent Hauge, received a call that his wife had been in a car accident in Iowa. She was not hurt, but the car was not driveable. Brent had to immediately leave to deal with that situation.

Two events then transpired that show what good people are out and about the world today. The first was that Arland Schwake, my great long time "do everything" employee, volunteered to come to the site and run the compactor. That meant we only had to round-up someone to be a "wheelbarrow jockey" and place the granular material.

The owner, Marshall Hansen, volunteered to shovel gravel and wheelbarrow as needed. He could see between shoveling and wheelbarrowing the material he would have his hands full, so he ask his neighbor Lyle Jokela to lend a hand. Lyle cheerfully came along to work in the basement excavation and in short order Arland, Marshall and Lyle had the cistern hole filled and compacted, ready for footing installation.

It is refreshing to see three people volunteer their efforts on a hot, humid day to work to take care of an unexpected task, and help out to replace an employee that was called away to a sudden family emergency. And two of these people were not even NCC employees!

Posted by Ray Cox at 5:07 AM | Link

 
Updated photo galleries for these residential projects in progress:

• Kimmes
  
• Robinson
  
• Sommers

New galleries for:

• Keller
  
• Pokorney

These are all linked from our residential portfolio section.

Posted by Griff Wigley at 1:53 PM | Link

 
There are new galleries up for these commericial projects in progress:

• Northfield Arts Guild Theatre
  
• Berglund 4-Plex
  
• ARTech Charter High School
  
• Laura Baker

These are all linked from our commercial portfolio section.

Posted by Griff Wigley at 7:32 AM | Link

 
Yesterday we started demolition on a small house at 416 East Sixth Street in Northfield.

This home served out its useful life, but sits on a very nice corner lot. Marshall and Carla Hansen purchased the home with the idea of building a new home on the site. Bernie Street, Project Manager at Northfield Construction Company, worked with Marshall and Carla for several months to finalize construction details. Hansen's chose to build a timber frame style home. This style uses main timber frames as support for the home, with structural insulated panels (SIP) between the timbers. SIP's are constructed of orientend strand board on each side of foam insulation. Using SIP's creates a very tight, energy efficient home.

Watch for more photos in the Hansen gallery, part of our residential portfolio.

Posted by Ray Cox at 5:26 AM | Link

 
We are well underway with the foundation for the River Walk Condominiums in Northfield. It is exciting to be working on a new, freestanding building downtown Northfield...something that has not been done for some time. The site, at the west end of the pedestrian walkway, was vacant for many years. This new project will add some new living options for Northfield, and will have some fine commercial spaces, all with views of the Cannon River. The work will cause some disruption for the merchants on Water Street for several months, but I think the new taxbase for the city and increased customers for the merchants should make it all worth while.

Picture below are Dean Kjerland, owner (R) and Curt Larson of Larson's Printing who is constructing a new building just to the north side of RWC.

Kurt Larson (L) and Dean Kjerland

Posted by Ray Cox at 3:03 PM | Link

 
The featured employee this month is Marja Cox, our summer receptionist and office assistant.

Marja is my daughter and is home from college. She attends Luther College in Decorah, Iowa. Marja just completed her junior year at Luther and is majoring in elementary education. This is the third summer that Marja has filled this position. She has learned all about invoices, statements, filing systems, etc. and does a great job handling a variety of front office tasks. Marja works full time while our regular office staff person, Pat Oanes, is on a summer break.

In May, Marja returned from 5 months in Ireland. She studied in Ireland as part of her Luther College education. An added bonus came in April when she had a school break and was able to visit her cousin in Norway. From Norway she traveled to Italy where she met up with her brother Tristan who was also traveling in Europe.

It is good to have Marja again doing a fine job at the front desk. This will probably be her last summer with Northfield Construction Company....unless she decides to come to work full time for us on a permanent basis!

Posted by Ray Cox at 7:32 AM | Link

 

Site preparation for Dean Kjerland's new building, River Walk Condominiums, started this week on the west side of the Cannon River in downtown Northfield. This is a shot from the footbridge, looking west.

(Click the image for a larger view of the architectural sketch.)

Posted by Griff Wigley at 11:43 AM | Link