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Darren Offen represents WW Martin at Construction Manager of the Year Awards (CMYA) 2017

Following an awards ceremony held on 27th September at the Grovesnor House, London, we are very proud of our Site Manager Darren Offen after he represented WW Martin as a Finalist in the CMYA 2017 Awards.

The CMYA are National awards that recognise the highest performing sites and personnel in the industry. To be named as a Finalist is a fantastic achievement by Darren and the team who delivered The Avenue, Gillingham.

The Avenue is a new state-of-the-art leisure development that offers fantastic new leisure, gym and indoor and outdoor tennis facilities in Kent.

Please see below for what the Judges said about Darren:

Visiting an indoor tennis facility that Darren Offen was completing in Dover, the client swiftly recognised that he had found the construction manager who could bring his vision to fruition. Darren’s friendliness and professionalism, not to mention the sheer quality of what he was building, sealed the deal, with the client insisting on him leading the project.

Aware of the advantage to the client’s business in opening early, Darren rapidly reduced the initial 54-week programme to 39 weeks. He then demonstrated a powerful value-engineering serve. The site required a considerable cut and fill operation to connect the new facility to an existing structure whose floor level had to be maintained.

Darren avoided having to undertake associated major roadworks by using much of the inert soil and material already on site to raise the levels of the new structure with a suspended wide-span floor. It eliminated the need for a significant retaining structure for the road, did away with mass aggregate import and the export of excavated material, and achieved significant cost and programme reductions.

And as if that were not enough, he used expertise and determination to drive through a whopping 167 variations. Costing £1.9m, they almost doubled the contract value. The impact of the variations on design, construction and programme was considerable. For example, three weeks before handover, there was a client request to turn a sizable storeroom into a technospin exercise room, requiring new walls and door openings, reconfiguration of the lighting and electrics, complete redecoration and the installation of gym equipment.

Darren’s effective communications and resolute management delivered all those variations on a programme extended by a mere six weeks.