PROJECT OVERVIEW

Steel Office Building

Alabama Steel Buildings

It’s not every day that you see a well-respected businessman aboard a bulldozer laying the foundation for his company’s new building.

But then again, it’s not every day you meet someone like Wilford Dollins of Tennessee Valley Wholesalers – a successful provider of plumbing and electrical supplies and services in Athens, Alabama.

Dollins built his company from scratch beginning in 1959, and although he is the owner and driving force behind the company, he humbly jokes that he is nothing more than the “Chief Cook and Bottle Washer.”

Since 1980, the company has operated out of a main office building on Highway 72 just outside of town. But Dollins says that two different, older buildings on the other side of town served as the company’s warehouses. His goal was to bring the entire operation to one central location.

That’s when he discovered Allied Steel. The company had a 40- by 160-square-foot building with three design options, one of which was exactly what Dollins had been seeking for the new Tennessee Valley warehouse.

“I called the company and everything checked out. I have a lot of knowledge of what’s going on in these situations, so I knew I had to be careful making this decision,” Dollins says. “I liked what I heard from Allied Steel . and I really like the building.”

In April of 2004, Dollins put in his order for the building, and set delivery for August. “I really didn’t have a big rush or anything,” he says.

Using the plans that Allied’s engineers developed, Dollins appeared by himself before the city planning commission. He says the project was approved “without a hitch.”

Once the building was delivered, Dollins got on board the bulldozer and got to work pouring the pad and laying the foundation.

“I do a lot of things for myself,” he says with a laugh. “I like doing it.”

Dollins decided to lay out the building “sideways” – so that the 160-foot length serves as the building’s front. For aesthetics, he had constructed four brick columns with handsome brown awnings to match his main office building next door.

“I laid it out that way with four doors in front to create four bays,” he says. “That way, some time down the road, I could divide them up and sublease the space if I wanted to.”

He hired a local contractor to erect the building, and the three-person crew had the structure ready for use in late February. Dollins immediately began emptying the two warehouses across town and moving the equipment into the new building.

Dollins says that working with Allied Steel was a smooth process all around. He admits that this was the first time he’d purchased a building in this manner, and says Allied made the buying – and building – process an easy one.

“It’s not every day we do something like this around here, but we like the building,” Dollins says.