February Mug Shot: Biggby Coffee

Our JJCA team members spend a lot of hours on the road. One great thing about our travels is that we get to spend a fair amount of time in the towns and cities where we are working to create special places to heal. We've traveled almost every state and several foreign countries to design and build acute care hospitals, behavioral healthcare facilities, freestanding emergency departments and any variety of community healthcare facility. As a result, we have become familiar with some of the local restaurants and coffee shops, in the communities where we work. After all, smart road warriors need to know where to find a good cup of joe. Of course everyone back at the office needs a steady stream of the stuff as well. And that's what has inspired our "Mug Shot" series featuring the coffee mugs that have made their way back from our travels to become a part of our office coffee klatch.

We start our series with the Biggby mug, brought to us by Tim Morgan who says Biggby Coffee is like the Starbucks of Michigan. I mean, who wouldn't want a hot, steaming cup of coffee on a cold winter's day after a walk about on the Cedar Creek job site in St. Johns Michigan? Conveniently located in a shopping center just after you leave Cedar Creek, Tim makes this a regular stop on his way back to the airport.

This is an interesting project that seamlessly weaves old and new together, both facility and team. Cedar Creek will be the transformation of an existing residential treatment center into an acute care behavioral hospital for UHS. Our team brings together the leadership group from Havenwyck Hospital, friends we have worked with on 5 projects over 10 years, with a contractor out of Grand Rapids and Ron Pilgreen of UHS, both of whom we've worked with on several projects over the last 7 years. Our team approach to the project has been so well-honed that design document delivery allowed for early demolition, which meant issues uncovered during demolition could be addressed in design documents. As a result, construction is scheduled to be finished just 6 months from when CDs were delivered. (Of course a few shots of caffeine during the process didn't hurt!)