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By Ed Marcum of the Knoxville News Sentinel, to view Knoxville News Sentinel article, click here.
Alcoa-based Hickory Construction Inc. is nearing its 40th year in business and well into a $5 million expansion of the Brookdale Sandy Springs Senior Living Facility. in Maryville.
“We should be out of there by December,” John McMillan, vice president of marketing for the construction firm said Wednesday.
“We actually have two jobs going there,” he said. “One is a new building, the other is a renovation.”
Kyle David, project manager for PDC Midwest Inc., construction manager on the project, did not want to speculate on when Brookdale Sandy Springs would be able to start moving people into the additions. Two months of rain has delayed the project, he said.
The project, which Hickory Construction began in September, will add a 14,848 square-foot addition with 14 bedrooms, an updated dining room, and nurse call stations to the 511 Pearson Springs Road facility. The 24,772 square-foot memory center will have 32 units, a courtyard, dining room and administrative office space, and will be used for the center’s Clare Bridge program for Alzheimer’s and dementia-related care.
Hickory Construction hopes the project will mark a trend. The company has done residential, commercial, industrial and medical facility projects, mostly offices and clinics for doctors and dentists. As the population ages, assisted-living construction will be a growing opportunity for Hickory Construction, McMillan said.
“There is a big demand right now,” he said. “There are probably two or three at least in Blount County alone.”
Aside from doing more such projects, a main goal for the company in the coming years is to expand its geographic footprint, McMillan said.
Most of the company’s projects are within an hour’s drive of its headquarters at 124 Kent Place. The company wants to do more work in the Tri-Cities area, Crossville, Chattanooga and elsewhere in East Tennessee, McMillan said.
The company was founded in August 1977 by Chuck Alexander and Rick Foden. It now employs about 65 people.
