Designs to fit space and function

Kevin Shalvey

07/20/2009

A few years ago, designer Peter Crump was in Seven Stars Bakery’s Hope Street shop, getting his morning coffee, when he noticed a worn patch on the counter.
“They had a piece of wood that was messed up. It was a little $50 repair,” Crump said. “And that ended up turning into a relationship, a couple big jobs.”
Crump’s company, Site Specific LLC, eventually built Seven Stars’ Broadway retail space and restored the bakery’s Hope Street location. And the benefits to Site Specific kept coming: because the owners of Seven Stars knew the owners of Wayland Street’s Farmstead and La Laiterie, Site Specific was recommended for the job of expanding that store.
Site Specific, although relatively small, can build nearly any size project, Crump said. The firm is in talks to build an approximately $4 million hotel and spa, for example.
Some builders have limits, such as not doing jobs under $10,000 or $50,000, “but we’ll do an $800 repair for someone,” Crump said. “Nothing is too small. We’re focused on the client, on the project.”
Crump said that although the company operates much of the time as a stand-alone, design-build firm, it does sometimes work with local architects. On its most recently completed job, the Gourmet Heaven market on Weybosset Street in Providence, the firm worked with Durkee, Brown, Viveiros & Werenfels Architects.
Sitting down with Crump and his Site Specific partner, Matt Dempsey, in their Allens Avenue office, it’s clear that they’re interested in the unique aspects of each project they do. Both talk about the company’s projects in terms of the philosophy behind their work.
“It sounds a little Zen-like, but the space and function inform what the design is,” said the 42-year-old Crump. “When you analyze what the needs are and you analyze the space, the needs and the space dictate what the layout will be.”
They both point out that no completed construction job is the product of only design work or only construction – the two are married, for better or worse. That’s why when designer and idea-man Crump brought Site Specific to Rhode Island in 2005 it seemed natural to partner with Dempsey, an engineer. Crump had founded the design firm in New York City the year earlier and moved for a better “quality of life.” “Our ability is to self-perform our carpentry and we do some design work as well,” Crump said. “We work with designers and architects, but my background is in art and design, so we also do some of that, too. Matt’s background is construction and engineering – we really have two things that we do. They’re integrated.”
“If we’re doing a design job, we do the building work,” he said. “We don’t want to do a design job and not be the builder of it.”
Dempsey and Crump met in early 2005, when Dempsey was planning to build an addition on his house. He “almost hired” Crump, but then put the project off until recently. Dempsey had been working for a medium-sized builder and they started talking about how a smaller design-build firm could better serve clients.
“And that’s what’s great about our partnership,” Dempsey said. “Peter’s the creative half of the [team] and I’m the analytic half.”
After they teamed up, the company expanded exponentially. By mid-2008, it grew from just a few employees to about 22 workers. But that rate of growth was based on the boom in the homebuilding and commercial construction industries that eventually fizzled, Dempsey said.
In the last year, Site Specific has cut its staff to 12. Four of those employees work out of the company’s Allens Avenue office and the rest are on-site every day, Crump said. The office was recently expanded to accommodate the woodworking shop that had previously taken up too much of the firm’s office. That freed up some room in the main office for a meeting space, complete with wooden floors and furniture designed by Crump.
The firm has more than a half-dozen jobs up and running at any time. About 90 percent of Site Specific’s work is done on-site, Crump said.
And the firm’s jobs are split fairly evenly between residential, commercial and institutional projects, Dempsey said. That diversity has allowed Site Specific to stay busy despite the recession. “So the summer months are typically the busy months for the universities,” Dempsey said. “If the commercial activity goes down,” there’s still work to be done. •

COMPANY PROFILE
Site Specific LLC
OWNERS: Peter Crump and Matt Dempsey
TYPE OF BUSINESS: Custom design and construction
LOCATION: 200 Allens Ave., Suite 4A, Providence
EMPLOYEES: 12
YEAR ESTABLISHED: 2004
ANNUAL SALES: WND

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