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Colorado Construction has provided dedicated engineering, construction and finishes since it was established almost 20 years ago. Director Mark Hamilton highlighted some of the company’s greatest achievements, in an exclusive nterview with Inside Sustainability. Report by Imogen Ward.
Scottish-based Colorado Construction was established by Directors Gary Gibson, Ian Bownes and David Hendren, plus Investor Russell Jordan, following a three-week kayaking holiday along the Colorado River.
“They started the company with the aim of offering construction, maintenance and development with an expertise in industrial work for the food and drink industry,” said Director Mark Hamilton. “We provide a great service that is very much centred around the customer – in fact 85 per cent of our work comes from repeat clients.”
Today, Colorado Construction operates with an average annual turnover of £20 million, providing customers with a high-quality service. With 2024 filled with lots of exciting projects, the company anticipates another strong performance for this financial year.
“We are really client-focused across every stage of the process,” explained Mr Hamilton. “We wrap our arms around the client because we often get involved with projects at the very early stages –sometimes even before the design or
COLORADO CONSTRUCTION I PROFILE
budget is established – becoming part of their construction team. We give advice on programming, buildability, value for money and logistics.
“As well as ‘Traditional Contracts’, we often offer operate Construction Management Contracts, providing the link between civil and building works and the client’s direct process installations, as lot of coordination is required for each build. Often, we need to coordinate the installation of the process equipment with the construction works, to ensure the whole process runs smoothly.
“That helps us get a lot of repeat work as well. As long as we provide a good service and show that we are offering good value for money, then we are in a solid position to build strong relationships, maintaining the confidence of our clients.”
This repeat business has enabled the company to build a strong pool of supply chain partners that it regularly relies upon.
“We have maintained great relationships with suppliers throughout the trades, providing us with solid cover for each project. These supply chain relationships are pivotal in the continued success for our clients, our project and ourselves,”
Mr Hamilton added.
Green Distilleries Initiative
With an eye on sustainable developments, Colorado Construction has recently sought out partnership with the UK’s leading burner manufacturer, Clean Burner Systems, and the University of Leeds. Together, the three entities have been granted an impressive £2.7 million in government funding to support their Green Distilleries Initiative.
This initiative seeks to help the UK’s distilleries move towards carbon neutral operations and will see the three partners design and develop a biofuel gasification system that can be retrofit to pre-existing boilers. This will allow distilleries to gasify low-cost biofuels in place of their current energy source.
“The Green Distilleries Initiative evolved from a theory that we could take the waste product from distilling and gasify it, then use this as a substitute for network gas,” explained Mr Hamilton.
“ The distilleries would then benefit from a reduction in carbon emissions and massive cost savings.
“We were awarded a grant of £2.7 million to put that theory into practice, and we have invested that money into building a dedicated facility for the project and a larger scale version of the biofuel gasification system. The University of Leeds has already begun testing the system, and the results have been encouraging.”
According to Mr Hamilton, the next stage will involve further development to make it a scalable product that can be rolled out to distilling and brewing businesses across the nation.
Other projects
Although the Green Distilleries Initiative could have a major impact on the distillery sector, it is just one in a long list of exciting projects that Colorado Construction has been involved with.
Just last year, the company completed an award-winning project on the modern build Hundred Acre Wood. The house took two years to construct and won recognition with the RIAS and RIBA National Awards for 2023.
The build incorporated several quirky yet sustainable design features, including cladding constructed from recycled TV screens. The home was also powered by a ground source heat pump.
Colorado Construction is also currently building seven bungalows in West Lothian.
Although they are not accredited, these bungalows are being built to Passivhaus standards and were designed with high levels of energy efficiency.
“The local community created a trust and raised funding for these bungalows,” Mr Hamilton explained. “They did this to provide housing for older people in the area who were looking to downsize and didn’t want to leave their friends behind. It is a great development that will help individuals remain independent.
“The plan was to make these builds so energy efficient that the resultant energy bills would cost no more than the winter fuel allowance, which of course would be a game changer in terms of cost savings for the occupants, who are most likely to be pensioners.”
Overcoming challenges
Colorado Construction also had the privilege of getting involved with the development of the Port of Leith Distillery.
A rather unusual build as the UK’s first vertical distillery, this £10 million project required a lot of technical forethought from the whole team, including the contractor.
“This project finished in November last year, and it is one we are really proud of,” said Mr Hamilton. “This was a technically challenging job because it was positioned next to the Royal Yacht Brittania on the corner of the harbour wall, which is held up by a series of ties that come inland at a 45-degree angle.
“This made piling quite complex, because we had to drive the concrete piles around the ties in order to lay the foundations.”
Colorado Construction successfully overcame the challenge and completed the vertical distillery to the client’s specifications. The verticality of this design was also quite unusual, as distilleries are typically constructed across the floor.
As it looks to the future, Colorado Construction intends to continue developing amazing projects that benefit its clients, living up to its strapline of ‘ Building Excellence, Creating Lagacy’.
“We will keep working with our clients to create amazing builds,” Mr Hamilton said, in conclusion. “We also intend to continue prioritising the health and safety of our people, whilst searching for new opportunities in the world of sustainability.” n
