Mount Pleasant Magazine July/August 2017

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MOUNT PLEASANT TOWN HALL
to 15 projects at a time, all in various stages of completion,
and, true to his hands-on approach to building, McKnight
tries to visit each of those construction sites every
two weeks or so. Weather
permitting, he’s been keeping
up with the Town Hall project
by flying into the Mount
Pleasant Regional Airport in a
single engine plane.
With a total of around
35 employees, McKnight
Construction leans heavily on
its subcontractors, choosing
local companies to work with
when possible.
“We don’t have that many
people working for us, so we
sub a lot of our work,” he
explained. “We have a good
relationship with our subs. We
nurture them, and we match
up the best one for the job so
our clients are better served.”
“The Mount Pleasant
Town Hall project was a very
long process, working with the architect and the town
to make sure we had the best subs and got local people
involved,” he added. “We tried to get local people to bid
on the project. That was one of the goals of the town – to
use local, qualified subcontractors. It took six to eight
months to develop our workforce and the pricing to fit
with what the town wanted and to be competitive.”
McKnight Construction’s
job entailed more than simply
building the new Town Hall.
To keep the town up and
running while work on the
new building was underway,
McKnight had to relocate
fiber optic cable, a generator,
the data room and electrical
services and tear down half
of a building so the town
could continue to use the
other half. When Mount
Pleasant employees moved
into their new home in July
2017, McKnight remained
at the site to raze the two
buildings remaining from the
old Town Hall complex, build a park and a new parking
lot and install the pad for what eventually will be the new
gymnasium.
McKnight
Construction
Company completed
work on Royall
Elementary School
in Florence, South
Carolina.
And what’s so special about the new Town Hall,
according to the man who runs the company that built it?
“The flow of the building. The people of Mount
Pleasant will find it to be a lot more convenient, and
the Police Department and business departments will all
be under one roof. All the town’s services will be in one
place,” he concluded. TH
McKnight Construction
Company helped
build the Dorman
High School and Early
College Career Center
in Spartanburg.