Beck adds logistics between local projects

The Beck Group was able to start one major community project on the same day another opened, which created a bit of a logistical project for the Dallas-based contractor's local office.

Beck was responsible for building the new $36-million Salvador Dali Museum along the St. Petersburg waterfront. The 66,400-square-foot concrete and glass museum, which is larger than the city's original facility and built to withstand a Category 5 hurricane, formally opened Jan. 11 at 11:11 a.m., in keeping with the surrealist artist's fascination with numbers.

Earlier that morning, Beck broke ground on the University of South Florida's $30-million Center for Advanced Medical Learning and Simulation in downtown Tampa. The 90,000-square-foot facility is designed to combine health-care training with simulation-based education.

Here's where things got tricky: Mark House, managing director of Beck's Tampa-based Florida division, had to make sure he and his boss, CEO Peter Beck, got across the Howard Franklin Bridge in enough time to attend both events. Transportation and scheduling were arranged so that they could turn the first shovels on the CAMLS site and make it to the Dali opening in time.

House says Beck didn't do anything special to win both the Dali and USF contracts, adding that both have been in the works over the last five years.

“It is absolutely pure stars-aligning luck,” House tells Coffee Talk. “We should have bought lottery tickets.”