“When the Children’s Advocacy Center of Collin County issued requests for proposals for help with their McKinney facility, they expected to be paying a lot of money for the project, but KDC responded with a bid of zero.
“I can’t tell you how important them being a part of this is,” CACCC chief operating officer Dan Powers said. “Having KDC as a partner in the construction and development of this site has been a gift. They’re on top of everything. They’re keeping the contractors, architects and all of those folks accountable during this which allows us to focus on the work we’re great at, and that’s helping kids.” KDC executive vice president of Design and Construction Mike Rosamond said the firm became familiar with CACCC through some of its previous clients.
“We had determined at that point that it was a really good project,” Rosamond said. “It fit us really well, and we would like to donate our services on it. So, we proposed in accordance with everything in the request for proposal and just simply put it at a $0 fee.”
Rosamond said the firm aims to give back to the community and has worked on other pro bono projects. “We do a lot of pretty tough work and takes a lot of long hours,” Rosamond said. “But when you’re involved in one of these projects, it’s a totally different perspective. You might think it will wear you out because you got a lot going on things at the end of the day and it really energizes you.”
Once they were awarded the project, KDC then brought on Alliance Architects and Spring Valley Construction who offered their services to CACCC at a discounted rate. The two-story approximately $10 million facility will be about 40,000 square feet and is estimated to be completed in Q3 2022.
Supply chain issues made it difficult for KDC to get materials such as structural steel, and the shortages caused the cost of equipment to rise. But Rosamond said the firm was able to place orders for the items it needed before the supply chain challenges worsened.
“We did get final pricing, and some of the pricing had gone up from some of our earlier estimates,” Rosamond said. “We were in the early sign of [supply strains], and when we began to see that, we started reaching out to and buying everything before the price increases.”
CACCC’s East Plano location will serve as its home base. All administrative functions will remain in the Plano site, and about half of the nonprofit’s direct service staff will move to the new facility. Medical professionals, law enforcement and therapists will be available at the new facility.
“We actually looked at the percentage of services that were coming from the northern part of our county,” Powers said. “Five years ago, about 40% was coming from the northern part, and if we look at that today, it’s closer to 50-50. That gap has really quickly grown because of the enormous growth in the northern part of our county.”
CACCC has been planning for this new site for about seven years. The nonprofit analyzed population growth, child population growth, school district data, surveys and spoke with demographers to ensure it was helping as many children in the county as possible. The center has had a training clinic in McKinney for several years, but Powers said the organization knew it needed another facility as the county continues to grow.
“We looked at a lot of data, and our board and staff worked together to see if we needed another facility in the northern part of our county because that is where the growth is,” Powers said. “As we’ve seen Collin County grow, we want to make sure that we are able to serve those children in those communities.”
Key players: Lynne McLean, Children’s Advocacy Center of Collin County; David Brooks, Independent Financial; Chad Michel, Alliance Architects; Carolyn & Mark Speese; Steve Bruszer, Spring Valley Construction Co.; Toby Grove, KDC”
Written by: Plamedie Ifasso
Published by: Dallas Business Journal