Team Spotlight: Steve Evans, Adroit Construction

Q: Steve, thank you for making the time to share your experience working on Watershed Row. To start, could you please tell us a bit about yourself? How did you get into construction? What are you doing when you're not working?

A: Haha, okay! I've been in construction for 22 years now. I just fell in love with the fact that I never have to work in the same place every single day. Once a building is built, I get to go on and build another one. So, I love that aspect. I love working with my hands. When I'm not working, I enjoy golfing, fishing, hunting—things like that.

Q: And you live in Southwest Oregon, right?

A: Talent, Oregon. I grew up in Humboldt County in the Eureka area and then moved up here when I was 14. Southern Oregon has been home for a long time.

Q: How do you describe your role on the Watershed Row project?

A: I'm superintendent of the Watershed Row project. Basically, it's a lot of scheduling our subs, organizing, and making sure we hit our dates, especially our end date. Making sure to do a lot of plan review, ensuring details are going to work. Obviously, with this being a remodel like many others I've done, conditions change. You think you're getting into one thing and then you're not.

Watershed Row project superintendent Steve Evans of Adroit Construction

There are — a lot — of design aspects as we go. There are many challenges with a bigger remodel like this, especially when there's an existing slab. We ran into this when digging for underground plumbing, electrical, or whatever footings — you just run into conditions or things underneath the ground that you weren't expecting. It's a team effort with architects and engineers — working together when problems arise, getting them figured out, and finding a timely solution to move forward.

Basically, my role involves scheduling and making sure subs are on track. We are a safety-oriented construction company. Our goal is not just to build the building and make people happy, but to ensure our guys go home to their families safe and then go on to build another project.

Q: Hundred percent. Sounds like a lot of expecting the unexpected and kind of you don't know what you don't know until you're literally digging into the project.

A: Absolutely.

Q: How have you explained Watershed Row to someone who doesn't know about the project? How have people reacted when you've told them about it?

A: For my friends and family, who've been around me as I’ve worked in construction for a long time, this job is extremely unique with it being a Living Building Challenge (LBC) project. There's a steep learning curve. I explain to them how we reuse and recycle. We're bringing in greener products.

It's a challenge, and it's definitely exciting.

It's something I've never been a part of before, so I'm learning as I go. I know my team is learning as they go, and all the subs are also learning.

It's one of those things where you've built for so long, and you're so used to the way we do things — just go, go, go. But with this job, it's more about thinking 12 to 13 steps ahead, instead of 3 to 4 steps ahead. This is because of getting materials, the type of product we need, and the lead times for certain things. It's challenging, and it's one of those projects where I've learned something new every day, which is exciting for me.

I told my kids: "If you don't try to learn something new every day, then you're in a funk, just going through the motions. Always try to expand yourself and learn something new."

With this project, I learn probably 12 new things every day. So, it's definitely very interesting, and I'm extremely excited to see the final product.

Q: That's awesome. How have the subs responded to the LBC standards, like the material sorting and salvaging and the stuff that, to your point, is perhaps not the norm for a remodel?

A: It's been a learning curve for them too. These guys get in such a rhythm with how we build. With the salvaging and asking them to go through some of the stuff they've salvaged and try to reuse and put it back into the building — that was a big learning curve.

Normally, they'd say, "I'll just order new materials, that way I can just do what I need to do." Instead, we're looking at the lumber out there and saying, "Let's go use it and put it back into the building." For them, that's just not the usual.

Honestly, when I first heard about the project and what we were doing, I thought I was going to get a lot of pushback from the subs. I thought there was going to be a lot of snickering, and "I don't want to do that," and "How am I supposed to be productive?" But they've all really embraced the whole fact that this is just a different project. They understand this is the way we're going to do this, and we're not veering away from it. This is what we signed up for. Let's get it done together.

Everyone's really jumped on board, and they're doing really well. So, I am really surprised that I didn't get as much pushback as I was preparing myself for in the beginning. This is new to me, and this is new to all these guys. No one's done anything like this before.

Q: How have you explained the Living Building Challenge (LBC) to folks who haven't heard of it before?

A: I refer to it as a LEED project. I've been a part of quite a few LEED projects, where you get certified as bronze, silver, or gold. LBC is like a LEED project but times 10. We are recycling everything when it comes to concrete, brick, etc. We've taken out some of the old exterior window frames and we're keeping the glass. They're going to put it in the terrazzo, which gets reused in the floor. Then we're taking these frames, cleaning them up, and we're going to hang them as clouds for the interior.

It's these little details that I've seen. I just explain to people that this is the kind of stuff we're doing here. It's not just rip it out, throw it in a trashcan or a metal bin, and then order new.

It's about reusing what we can.

For my friends and family, they kind of looked at me like, "Well, how is that efficient?" I just said, "We accommodate. We try to look 12 steps forward instead of 3 to 4, and we just try to time everything right and be productive as we go."

Q: You've mentioned the coordination and timing being among the challenges and getting used to a different type of remodel project. Is there anything else that's been most challenging about this unique project?

A: It's all about looking out ahead and making sure that all our ducks are in line, especially when it comes to reclaimed lumber for the finish work in this project. Alex, the executive director of Watershed Row, took on a big part of making sure that stuff gets milled and everything is ready to go — whether it's for flooring or going on the wall. They need to know the quantity and when it needs to be delivered.

Everyone would love to have a huge warehouse where we can just stack everything up and cherry-pick as needed, but that's just not the case here. The biggest challenge, as I said, is scheduling and making sure we get things dealt with and brought in as needed.

Q: You already mentioned some of the pleasant surprises of the project so far. Has there been anything that stands out as the most rewarding?

A: I think the reward will come when the project is complete. My focus is on seeing the end result and turning it over to the owners. My biggest goal is turning over the best product I could possibly provide to the owners and making sure we're done on time and everyone's happy.

To me, the end result is going to be the most rewarding. I want to make sure Alex and Malu, the creative director of Watershed Row, are happy with everything they're getting and that the whole building is functioning the way they wanted.

Q: Absolutely. Do you have a favorite part of the building already?

A: When I first got here, it was immediately the climbing gym. I have a really good friend who's really into climbing, and I've been talking to him about this. He said he's coming over, and he wants to climb it. And he wants me to join him. I said, "We'll see."

Q: What do you think you'll take away from this experience working on Watershed Row, a Living Building Challenge building?

A: I'm still trying to wrap my mind around it, but I think one of the biggest things I'm going to take away is seeing an alternative perspective, where we don't just tear it off — say, the metal roofing or siding — throw it away, and put up something brand new.

Instead, we're putting older stuff that's been here back on the building and reusing it. It's a different perspective for me.

I've seen how this project is reusing everything that can possibly be reused while still making the building functional. That's very interesting to me.

When someone has put so much time and energy into something, they would typically want something new and shiny to say, "Look at what we just did!" And in this project, they're still going to get that. There's a living wall, a stage, the whole kitchen; people are going to see a lot of new and cool-looking things.

But they're also preserving the old history of the 1928 building. That's pretty interesting to me.