| We snapped Pinck & Co's Jennifer Pinck, who is hip deep in the $115M renovation of 500 rental apartments at Castle Square in the South End for the owners, Castle Square Tenants Organization and Winn Development. This energy retrofit, highlighted during a recent visit by HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan, started last fall and will be completed spring ?12. As it goes on, the building is occupied. But Jennifer likes challenges. She must. In the ?70s when she started in the trades as a commercial painter, she says there were no other women in the field. Also, she was the first woman in Boston to get the ABC license that allows her to pull permits for any building type from wood to steel. |
| Now Jennifer, who is looking over some plans with staff Deirdre Sinnott, Jacob Thibeault, and Margaret Wood, runs her own 14-person firm, which acts as an owner?s project manager for non-profits. Jennifer picked this route to be involved in community building. Her client list runs the gamut from the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center to Norton High School and the Jamaica Plain Development Corp. On Castle Square, Jennifer?s been working with the tenant group since ?04, advising them on how to become the majority owner of the property within walking distance of the Theater District and how to maintain and redevelop it. Now, they're installing new kitchens, baths, windows, roofs, mechanical systems, air sealing, solar paneling, and exterior insulated cladding. |
| Jennifer, here with Deborah Marai and intern Micaela Woskie, says this year is running 30% ahead of last year with some stimulus projects adding to the mix, and she's much more optimistic. Lots of projects put on hold during the economic crunch are likely to resurface. There hasn?t been major price escalation. Massachusetts has a diverse economy and the state has continued to invest in the non-profit sectors on which Pinck focuses like affordable housing and education. Speaking of public investment, Jennifer earned some of her construction creds on the nation's largest public sector projects: the Big Dig and Boston Harbor Clean Up. |
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