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Mix and Match

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The Neenan Co. Achieves Eclectic Blend of Masonry on Recent Projects

Jim Neenan, President,
The Neenan Co.

Denver, CO (2001) - Jim Neenan has every reason to think about masonry. He’s got a great view of it no matter where he looks – and he builds with it whenever he can.

Sitting in his rehabilitated brick office in a 100-year-old LoDo building – now his company’s Denver headquarters – Neenan can look across the street at two new masonry buildings his company recently completed.

They are the 1899 Wynkoop building and the Atrium Lofts, both just a baseball’s toss from Coors Field. The Atrium building is all brick with precast accents and some metal, giving it a traditional look appropriate for an urban setting. The use of mixed materials anchored by masonry represents a trend emerging in a dynamic slate of recent projects The Neenan Co. has done throughout the Front Range. Neenan is one of the Colorado’s design-build leaders, earning almost $70 million for its design-build work alone during the last fiscal year.

Included among its large, recent design-build projects are the $32 million Xilinx office complex in Longmont and the 184,000-sq-ft. Mack Cali Corporate Center in Englewood, completed earlier this year.

The firm has also established a reputation for creating its own unique brand of design-build, with most phases of a project done in-house through the collaboration of the firm’s own architects, estimators and many highly involved outside subcontractors.

Xilinx Co. headquarters in Longmont was built by Neenan with a lively mix of masonry styles and materials.

Jim Neenan understands both the advantages and risks of his company’s style of design-build. “The biggest advantage,” he said, “is that you learn quickly what works and doesn’t work on a one-shot basis. You build a team and have them do several projects together. The key is making sure that their systems and processes are connected, not just the people. And that means the whole process should be done under one roof.”

Part of that process, of course, is materials selection and recommendations. That means, according to Jim Neenan, including subcontractors and some vendors, as well as masons on occasion, on the team immediately. This creates in-house partnerships that allow The Neenan Co. to better handle the long lead-times of some construction trades and materials, like some types of masonry, which can be specified and cut way ahead of time. Neenan said his project teams “look for materials that aren’t just structurally appropriate but ones that also add comfort and warmth to the built environment.”

The Xilinx Co. façade features 7 different building materials, including stone.

Stone and brick are good for that, he said, and they also “create a unique and inviting atmosphere.” They are also some of the most durable materials, allowing for a value decision that’s not just based on initial cost. “Like any other contractor, we try to help our clients keep their costs down, but we want them to be happy with what they get over the long run, and that means we have to take a lot of other things into consideration, especially quality of materials.”

He said that the image the client wants partly determines the choice of materials and today, most want to create a sense of stability and elegance without being showy. “We frequently combine a number of different materials in our exteriors: glass, stone, brick, block, metal, even EIFS. You can make the combination work to highlight the masonry elements and still save money if you plan carefully enough.”

His case in point is the 136,000-sq.-ft. Xilinx office complex. For materials, it features metal panels and seven different external finishes, anchored by stone, which gives it “a sense of permanence,” Neenan said. Xilinx’s primary design requirements were flexible work spaces, a comfortable environment and architecture that felt appropriate for Colorado. That meant it had to include masonry, he said.

Two of Neenan’s recent masonry hallmarks include the Atrium Lofts (left) and 1899 Wynkoop
(center right).

“We also look for materials that will hold not just their structural integrity, but also their look, over time. You don’t want to build a new building that will look completely out of place in a few years. However, we’re not afraid of treading on the edge of innovation. You have to find the right combination. When we told people we were going to use seven different exterior materials at Xilinx, they said: ‘Seven? Are you nuts?’ But we and the architect (at Downing Thorpe & James) made it work,” he said.

Neenan said that some of his favorite local masonry buildings are “anything we’ve built,” but also: the warm use of stone on the CU Boulder campus, Coors Field, Cleveholm Manor in Redstone (Redstone Castle) and the fireplaces and interior masonry work at Park Meadows Mall.

“As contractors, we always keep in mind that we’ve got lots of materials options available to us,” he said, “but we like to choose ones that create the places we’d like to live and work ourselves.”

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