When Rally Health needed to expand its Minneapolis office, it retained Ericka Miller, senior vice president of KimbleCo, as its local tenant representative. Ultimately, Rally Health also hired KimbleCo, led by MNCREW past president, Julie Kimble, to be the local project manager for tenant improvements, and to assemble the buildout team.
Miller, a 20-year member and immediate past president of MNCREW, toured Rally Health through several options that could accommodate up to 60,000 square feet. The tenant ultimately chose a new building and leased 40,000 square feet, with the right of first refusal on an additional 20,000 square feet. Then, as part of their project management scope, KimbleCo approached MNCREW members and non-members to bid on architectural, general contractor and design services.
“We wanted to be sure we received bids from the best in the business,” Miller said. KimbleCo developed, managed and evaluated the responses. After a downselect, KimbleCo conducted interviews with Rally Health. The latter selected MNCREW members for the buildout team, consisting of:
-
Shari Bjork, DLR Group (Project Architects/Designers)
-
Heather Weerheim, Greiner Construction (General Contractor)
-
Andrea Fazendin, Art Partners Group (Art/Graphics)
Said Miller: “We provided local knowledge and information to the client, and helped the client make the final selection. It was great that our primary project team consisted of five MNCREW members, and their respective companies.”
The successful project completion wasn’t the end of the story. The five-member team is currently building out the remaining 20,000 square feet taken by Rally Health. Furthermore, the digital health company retained KimbleCo as its national project manager, and DLR group as its national architect partner.
From Miller’s standpoint, CREW Network is not just in-chapter networking, but expansion of global opportunities, as well. As commercial real estate can be considered a highly local business, “none of us know real estate markets the way that those who have boots on the ground do,” Miller said. “Because of CREW, I feel like I have subject-matter experts in cities across the globe.”
Project lead:
Additional CREW members involved in this project:
Amy Sorter is a member of CREW Fort Worth and principal of The WordSorters, a content development company. Amy is an award-winning journalist and seasoned copywriter, who creates compelling blogs, articles, e-books, website content, infographics and more for commercial real estate and business clients.
read full bio
Have you been involved in a great deal or collaboration between CREW members?
View more member-to-member business success stories in our Newsroom.