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Ok, I'll put new stuff at the top here... Today we met with the city, we, being Ben the architecht, and forum member, and now techie scuba addict.... and I met the fire chief, who OK'd our fire lanes, etc... Then talked to planning and development about construction techniques, the look, and parking requirements.
Ben has done an awesome job, and brought a color rendering of the new design - and it looks like they are just going to want us to file for a few little variances - but they seem pretty happy with what we are planning to do - and why wouldn't they - I think it looks Great!!! Check it out:
We'll post up more info as we get it!
Well, many folks watched this page as we bought our building a few years ago, and went through the construction progress. We're proud to say, that even though we thought we'd never outgrow our 10,000 foot shop - we have. So we bought the land next to us, and we are now finalizing drawings for the addition and remodel of our facility. When done, we will grow to over 17,000 square feet with 3 times the floor space that we have now. We'll keep you updated as we go - but here is the rough drawing of the planned new facility.
We're leaving the old pictures below - so you can compare to what we have now, and what the new facility will look like. As you look at the drawing, you can see we will have a lot more parking, the section on the left is all new, and will be all new retail showroom. And you can see the main doors have moved to the Crux of the L shape we will have.
The old front door, will now just be the shipping and receiving area - so now when you walk in - you won't be tripping over the heaps of stuff we get in on a daily basis!
Stop back here often - and we'll keep you updated on our progress!
Thanks to you, our valued customer, Scubatoys.com is going through our 4th
expansion in 5 years! This time, we're taking the big step. We have just
purchased a new building to move our shop into. We will have a much larger
pool, more class rooms, plus a much larger show
room.
The move is just 2 miles up the road from our present location - we are heading the the I-35 and Crosby Exit in Carrollton. We thought you might enjoy seeing the progress we are making as we give the building a complete makeover.
This building used to be the old Sims Moore Lumber and Hardware store.... And still looks the same today as it did 30 years ago. And the reason we know this, is when tearing out the old walls, we found some postcards that slid behind the insulation... Check out the Cars, and the haircuts in these photos! And no! That's not Joe and Larry!
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More recently the building was a Russels Carpets, then Rosa's Imports. And you can see by the picture, nothing really had changed... So the first thing we wanted to do was get a new look for the outside. We are starting by removing the old shingles on the front, and replacing that with Copper Metal. Then we're going to remodel the front with stone and wood to give if a comfortable rustic look. We'll post more photos as the project progresses.
Also, we have just finished gutting out the inside of the building. This gives us a huge space to work with. The inside photo shows part of the building from the halfway point forward... Kinda' gives you the feeling this is going to be a big shop! Soon we'll be cutting out our new pool, and adding the showroom floor and fixtures... And we can't wait!
If you want to get an idea of what it's going to look like, here is the Floor Plan in a PDF File.
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Update: 9/18
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Well, today we got the pole sign up... and we've got some of the copper metal on the front of the building. We also dropped a banner with our logo on the front. This will be replaced with a large Neon sign in about 4-6 weeks.
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We also have the AC, Heat and Venting coming along. These are 2 big vents that will be at one end of the pool area, and we have a 48" vent fan mounted up in the ceiling. This will move 30,000 cubic feet of air per minute. That is the equivelant of moving 375 scuba tanks of air through the room every 60 seconds. We figure if we ever get tired of teaching scuba - we can use the pool and the fans to teach wind surfing!
If you look at the floor, you might also be able to see the concrete cuts. We are hauling out 2,500 square feet of concrete to make way for the new pool and decking. We should start digging the pool in the next week or so...
We'll keep you updated! |
Update: 9/29
We're making some progress.. We're having insulating foam sprayed on all the walls and ceilings. This really helps knock down the heating and air conditioning bills. We had the same stuff sprayed on the ceiling of our barn, and are horses are glad to testify that the temp is 20 degrees cooler in the summer.
This will be done in a few days, then it's time to dig a pool! Stop back and we'll show the shots of the pool under construction later next week.
Everyone asks when we're going
to move in... We're thinking... when it's done... But hopefully -
if everything goes well - sometime between November and January. That's
a pretty big window, but with building a pool and all the rest of
construction jobs that have to be coordinated - we really can't pin
it down any better than that... But we'll let you know!
Update: 10/14
We got the hole dug inside the building for our new pool... It's been a minor nightmare... We hit a ton of water - but with pumps working - we've been pumping several thousands of gallons per hour, we are finally finished with the dig and you can see they are putting in the metal.
After the metal goes in, it will be time for the plumbing, then we can shoot the gunite - then that will take about a week to cure - then the tile and plaster.
At the same time this has been going on - we got a crew working on the front of the building. You can see the rock front we're building - nearly done with that - just a few more of the pillars to wrap with rock. Then we are coming back in and putting cedar the rest of the way up. It's shaping up nicely - but taking a bit of time...
Update: 11/7
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Hey! We got the neon burning now! And we got some more of the brick on the front. Making progress!
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Update: 1/2/2004
Ok, the pool is no longer just a mud hole - we got the tile, coping, and deck poured in - just waiting for the rest of the construction to be done so we can plaster. You can also see the walls are up around the pool - which includes both bathrooms - 2 class rooms, and our repair room.
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| We got our neon flags on the side of the building - and they're lite up every night now - so if you're traveling either north or south on I35 - look on the east side near the Crosby Rd exit and you should see them. You can also see that we got our concrete curbs finished - and the new parking lot goes in next week.
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| Here's a glimpse of the inside - the walls you see are for storage up front - and you can also see the compass rose we had stained into the concrete... below is a close up. |  |
And here is a close up of the compass...
Pardon the dust... |  |
Update: 11/7
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Hey! We got the neon burning now! And we got some more of the brick on the front. Making progress!
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Update: 2/7/2004
We got all the walls up.. and the place is painted... We went with a dark blue and black. No don't go telling me it looks too dark - just wait until we're done. There's still a bunch of things we're doing on the walls.
This shot is from the front looking into the showroom. Way in the back there - that deck looking thing is our waterfall and saltwater tank - see the next photo. | 
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| The waterfall flows down into one of the tanks, and butted up against that one is another 400 gallon tank that we will have all set up with salt water fish. Next to this you can see the window into the pool. Should be neat! Can't wait until we're done!
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Update: 2/21/2004
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I found this really cool mist maker that we tossed into the water fall. It changes colors with an array of LEDs and makes a misty smoke that runs down the waterfall. Has nothing to do with scuba.... but I liked it! | 
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| We had our bud... Harvey Sisco - famous for Sisco the shark out at Clear Springs Scuba park, weld us up some wetsuit racks. These racks reach 12 feet high and we can hold over 1200 suits on the rack in the showroom. The rest will be back in storage.
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And now we are putting some finishing touches on.. The lights are almost all in, and on the walls, we found these really neat fish wall papers - and all around the shop you will find coral scenes, sharks, dolphins, grunts, angel fish and more - swimming about our walls. This is a shot from the inside looking at the front door.
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| Also we will be featuring some of our top manufacturers with
custom signs and displays. We will have a buch of neon logos,
light boxes, and check out our ScubaPro area... Yes... their
logo is etched in stone (actually stained in concrete) in our shop! |  |
Update: 3/8/2004
We're done!! We're in. Follow this link for a map and directions to our new store.
The photo below was taken by our resident Cisco systems expert, and photographer, David Cappello. While he prefers shooting underwater, he not only configured our new Cisco Voice over IP Telephony system... He took this incredible shot!
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Driving to our Location
1609 S Interstate 35E
Carrollton, TX 75006
(972) 820-7667 Toll Free: (877) 728-2243 Fax: (972) 820-7521
info@scubatoys.com
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