Services for Owners & Management

Tishman Midwest Management Corp (1989-1993)

John Balanoff worked as Project Manager for Tishman Midwest in the early 90’s. T/M had decided to take over all construction in their two buildings, 300 S. Riverside and 500 W. Madison.

T/M wanted to pursue G.S.A. work and wanted the ability to “turn-key” all projects.

John was responsible for all construction budgets (working with T/M brokers) through the completion of all projects.

Working with a team of architects and engineers, each of the T/M properties won the following G.S.A leases.

Under John’s direction, the following spaces were competitively bid, constructed by the T/M construction company (which John ran) and in every instance the projects came in at or below budget.

300 S. Riverside

IRS Regional Processing Center
87,000 sq. ft with a 15,000 sq. ft. computer room

FDA Offices
78,000 sq. ft. with cooking kitchens

Department of Defense
5,000 sq. ft. with special security

Small Business Administration
5,000 sq. ft. area offices

Secret Service
15,000 sq. ft. area offices with health club facilities

500 W. Madison

Small Business Administration
44,000 sq. ft. regional office

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
44.000 sq. ft. office

Department of Justice
15,000 sq. ft. with special security and holding cell

In an attempt to save money and allow for “fast track” projects, John pre ordered and stocked all light fixtures, doors, frames, hardware, drywall and acoustical tile. This was done for over 250,000 square feet of space.

In addition to the G.S.A. projects, T/M completed an additional 150,000 sq. ft. of office space at 300 S. Riverside and an additional 250,000 sq. ft. of office space at 500 W. Madison.

The Galbreath Company (1993-1995)

Dean Lampros (formerly of T/M) took over the management at 500 W. Madison for the Galbreath Company. John Balanoff continued to perform the same services for The Galbreath Company that he had for T/M. During these two years, John was responsible for and completed over 100,000 sq. ft. of new buildouts and over 100,000 sq. ft of renovation work. All was completed as “turn key” projects.

At the same time, John’s construction company, ICM Inc., remodeled and reworked over 30,000 sq. ft. of space for Systems Software Associates. ICM also completed the construction of SSA’s new IT facility.

The Lurie Company (1998-2007)

The Lurie Company owned and managed 120 S. LaSalle, 33 N. LaSalle and 221 N. LaSalle.

John was hired as construction consultant to assist TLC with the buildout of 250,000 sq. ft. at 120 S. LaSalle (the top twelve floors). The building had just been totally renovated and beside base building bathrooms and fan rooms, the floors were “raw”.

John’s first assignment was to assist in the selections of all base building items. These were selected based on appearance and cost. Based on John’s experience at Tishman Midwest, TLC pre-ordered all light fixtures, doors, frames and hardware for the completion of at least 100,000 sq. ft. Not only did this save TLC over $2/sq. ft. of buildout costs, it also gave them the ability to “fast track” projects.

John worked with the brokers and architects to budget all work under consideration. Under John’s guidance, TLC built out (turn keyed) over 150,000 sq. ft. and John worked as Construction Manager for the remaining 100,000 sq. ft. During this time, John was also responsible for the construction of eight common corridors and sub-dividing the eight floors.

After 120 S. LaSalle was completely built out in 2002, John (and his new company CMC) began consulting at 221 N. LaSalle. During CMC’s time at 221 N. LaSalle, they assisted in turn keying over 50,000 sq. ft. of space, remodeling another 50,000 sq. ft. and assisted with the remodel of ten public corridors, construction of a fan room and the creation of four new building bathrooms.

John also acted as Construction Manager for the construction of Sidebar, a restaurant/bar on the first floor.

Elkay Manufacturing Company

Headquarters – Oakbrook, IL

CMC was hired to assist with a project that was to be a complete gut and creation of general office space. The building had been constructed in the late 60’s.

Elkay Manufacturing Company liked the way that CMC worked. During the next two years, Elkay had remodeled six basebuilding bathrooms, rebuilt 30,000 sq. ft. of office space, remodeled the lunchroom and created a showroom.

CMC’s most challenging project at Elkay was to convert the original pneumatic control system for HVAC to an electronic DDC control system. Engineering and contracting was competitively bid. Project was completed in ninety days. Some people were relocated for one day, but Elkay experienced no loss of work.

US Realty Corp.

122 S. Michigan Ave.

Based on John Balanoff’s experience with GSA, Red Weller asked John to work with him to try and get the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulations State office. John worked for no fee to develop an overall budget for the project based on a written RFP with no space plan. This project also required the project be “green”, following all LEED requirements. The State added the following work to be included in our proposal; 65 work stations and their move from multiple locations. The space was to be placed on two floors totaling 50,000 sq. ft. John’s budget was $69/sq. ft. Red used this to calculate the rent.

Ownership was shocked when we won the lease.

Red was later told that all the other bidders carried $100-$110/sq. ft. for construction and all extras.

CMC oversaw the construction and except for found asbestos and the need to rebuild, with new equipment, two fan rooms, the job came in exactly as budgeted.

The space became the State of Illinois’ first “green” project.