Ryan Cos. developed nearly 500,000 square feet of Brookside Marketplace in Tinley Park, Ill.

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Ryan Cos. US Inc. was recently named National Developer of the Year by the National Association of Industrial and Office Properties (NAIOP), a major accomplishment for Ryan, which is celebrating its 70th anniversary in 2008.

In Chicago, where Ryan’s history is considerably shorter, the strengths that have made it a top-tier developer and contractor elsewhere in the country are still the same, according to President Jeff Smith.

Projects such as the Sears Centre in Hoffman Estates, Ill., are concrete examples of the company’s vertical integration and wide range of expertise, and played a role in selection for the prestigious NAIOP award, he says.

Thanks to those factors, Ryan Cos. gains a greater toehold in the Chicago market every year, Smith says. The company has sectors still left to break into the area, making the future appear bright. “We are establishing positions in office and medical office [projects], and we’ve had secure positions in retail and industrial development for six or seven years now,” Smith says.

Vertical Culture
Smith says the company’s combination of services makes it a unique player in the market. “True vertical integration of finance, development, construction, design and property management – that’s one item that I would say sets us apart,” he says.

Smith adds that to keep all areas of the company strong, Ryan Cos. tries to incorporate as many of its services into a project as possible.

In the design arena, Ryan Cos. tests and challenges itself by seeking out competitive bid projects, as well as adhering to LEED certification standards. The company also manages all of the properties it develops, which currently amounts to about 12 million square feet of space, Smith says.         Working this hard keeps the firm focused and sharp. “It’s easy when you internalize everything to become lazy,” he says. “One of our basic tenets is to make sure that we keep a steady diet of third-party design/build work.”

Ryan strives to live up to its principles and Smith admits that it’s a constant focus to make sure the entire company stays on-message. “The other [distinguishing feature] is our culture of relationship-driven vs. profit-driven,” he says. “It’s a philosophy and an approach that is easy to put on a business card but hard to live.”
    
Sears Centre
Smith says the recent construction of the Sears Centre exemplifies the company’s vertical integration and its relationship-driven culture.

“We were working with Sears Holdings to evaluate whether or not we could help them with retail expansion in their stores,” Smith says. While working on that project, Sears Director of Real Estate Jim Terrell told Smith that Sears was looking to spur development in the Prairie Stone Business Park in Hoffman Estates, Ill., where its corporate headquarters is located.

Taking inspiration from the plans for what would become the Toyota Park soccer stadium in Bridgeview, Ill., Smith proposed a similar project. “It sparked a thought in my mind that if [Sears was] interested in this kind of shot in the arm, maybe a year-round facility would work.” The company had previous experience with this type of project, having developed John Deere Commons in Moline, Ill., which included Mark of the Quad Cities, a 12,000-seat arena.

Work on Sears Centre began in 2004, with its grand opening in October 2006. The facility is an 11,000-seat multipurpose, enclosed venue, with 43 luxury suites and 1,000 club seats. Smith says the project was the first to be completely designed in-house for Ryan Cos.’s Chicago office, which also holds 75 percent ownership in the facility. Sears Holdings owns a 25 percent stake in Sears Centre.

“It’s obviously a departure from building warehouses, but it takes advantage of that vertical integration,” Smith says.

The most difficult aspect of the construction was the accelerated schedule, according to Lead Field Superintendent Gary Dini. “It was something new for most of us and the time frame was pretty tough,” he says. “It was 15 months from groundbreaking to opening up.”

The key to making sure the project was brought in on time was constant communication, Dini says. “We got all our subcontractors on board with the fact that we had to be open at a certain time and everybody knew the end date and met their goals for reaching the end date,” he says.

The building’s main structure is steel, with a concrete foundation and precast concrete for the seating areas, Dini says. The 300-foot-long steel trusses were set in one piece, which presented another challenge that the company solved with technology. “They were built onsite just outside the building, and we had a huge crane that was able to pick them up and walk them into place,” he says.