- Award category: Fine Design
- Speciality: Full-service remodeling
- 13 years in business
- 2009 volume: $4.5 million
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Staff: 4 office, 16 field
Credit: Carol Clayton Photography
While most businesses mentioned in this category are design/build, Added Dimensions is a build-only company with close ties to architects and a dedication to fine craftsmanship and contemporary design.
When Alan Kanner (left in photo), a lawyer with junior carpenter experience, and Richard Hazboun (right), an engineer with a lifelong construction background, got together they recognized the importance of partnership. “Had I done this myself, I would have sunk like a stone,” Kanner says.
That original model extends to the way they run their company. Kanner and Hazboun hire mature employees who have, in addition to their skills, “a [way] of making clients feel comfortable,” Kanner says. AD’s five superintendents feel a deep connection to the company and are committed to its focus on contemporary design.
BEST PRACTICES
- Marketing focus is on meeting architects, attending awards ceremonies, sponsoring events.
- The company has worked with some of the top contemporary architects in Washington, D.C. “If we see a project in a magazine that we like, we contact the architect,” Hazboun says. “Once the connection is made, we focus on developing a relationship and a sense of teamwork with the architect and their client.”
- The company is vertically divided and each project gets a team of three: an owner, a superintendent, and a project manager.
- Clients finance their own jobs through a type of escrow account.
Notable quotes: “Everyone in the company should have a life outside their work,” Kanner says.
“We insist that people who work for us do so not because … it’s a meal ticket,” Kanner says. “We [want] people using their own initiative.”
- Stacey Freed