Local home renovation company OakWood has opened a new corporate headquarters and design centre in Orleans valued at more than $10 million.
The fourth-generation family-owned and operated business, which will mark its 60th anniversary this year, believes the state-of-the-art design centre will dramatically reduce the amount of time it takes customers to plan a renovation.
COO Patricia Liptak-Satov says with the help of an Oakwood designer, customers can move through the new facility and make decisions on countertops, faucets, flooring – all preferences scanned using QR codes – and then have those elements assembled in a 3D drawing. The entire process can take as little time as one hour.
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Ms. Liptak-Satov says this breaks from the traditional renovation design process, which would see customers visit independent tile companies, flooring experts and cabinet makers over a number of weeks.
Reality TV star and expert renovator Mike Holmes, who attended the opening, says he has never seen anything quite like the Oakwood design centre in terms of options for clients and leveraging new technology to design and build projects.
Company president John Liptak says the new headquarters and design centre were seven years in the making. The building was designed by Barry J. Hobin & Associates and will reach LEED platinum status.
Mr. Liptak says the design centre is just another example of how Oakwood embraces new technology.
He says the company employs dozens of computer programmers from around the world to work on its CRM and backend databases. Some of these programmers are working to implement Microsoft HoloLens, which will allow customers’ design plans to come to life through holograms. The Microsoft technology could be implemented in 2017.
“Nobody does what we do,” says Mr. Liptak. “We’re on the cutting edge.”
