Building relationships

Contractor Joe Franek sets a new partition wall April 9, 2009, at Anthologie's location at 18 Bridge Square, Northfield, Minn. Franek Construction brings businesses together

When John and I signed our lease for our Northfield location April 2, we faced two challenges: One, we needed to spruce up our space - quickly. And two, we needed to convert the space for an unusual business arrangement - with Nick Sinclair and The Garage sharing 25 percent of the building footprint.

Fortunately Joe Franek of Franek Construction in New Prague crossed our path. Now that we have a proper blog functioning it's time for Joe's long overdue thank you.

We were first impressed by Joe's timeliness and commitment to our project. As you can see from date in the caption to the image above, Joe was on sight and at work within days of us signing a lease. Despite his obligation to larger jobs and prior bids Joe was able to find time to sneak us into his busy schedule.

Joe and other contractors survive on the integrity of their finished projects and do a lot more walking the walk instead of talking the talk but it's often what you don't see that can make the biggest difference. Immediately upon entering the front door Joe made sure the building was protected from cutoffs, sawdust and other small debris, making our cleanup effortless once the job was done.

Joe's experience lead him to easily come up with a solution to our spacial quandary -- a three-and-a-half-wall partition with an extra wide hallway improved the flow of our building, provided Nick with the room for the unique gallery he needed, made the Garage and Anthologie separate and together at once and actually made our square footage seem larger than before!

Above all, Joe is simply an honest guy with a great personality. He went above and beyond what we had originally asked for, coming back to our building each day after the drywall had been hung to personally ensure each coat of joint compound had dried properly, was sanded to perfection and a new coat had been applied smoothly.

Joe has since become an Anthologie client. We had a great time getting to know his extended family and photographing his son's first steps. Check out our new window display at 18 Bridge Square and you'll see what I mean.

If you're in need of assistance with home improvements, commercial construction or a new home Franek Construction is a building company you can depend on. Call 612-232-9288 for more information. Thanks again Joe!

Joe Franek keeps his focus while renovating the Anthologie gallery and offices.