projects, Adam says, because they take a long time to design and build and they get to know their clients very well. “Some of the homes we’re doing now have taken 12 months, 14 months, or 16 months to design, and now we’re getting into a build cycle that can last 18 months to 24 months,” Adam explains. “We’re with these people for a long time and that’s really important. We don’t disappear at any point.” At the moment, Fireside is also working on renovating a 100-year-old factory warehouse building in Winnipeg’s historic district. Jaclyn says that project has been challenging, but the challenge has been enjoyable: “We’ve got roofs falling in, we’ve got foundation issues. We’ve got heritage codes to appease and a litany of building inspectors to accommodate. At the same time, we’re working hard to preserve the artistic design that everybody’s on board with. It’s been a real challenge, but we love a challenge.” Moving forward, Adam and Jaclyn intend to continue taking on challenging and large-scale projects that one. If they need to grow a little to take those on, they will do that, but they don’t foresee needing to grow much bigger – they feel like the company is already wellstructured to adapt to new challenges as they present themselves. “I think we’ve really modelled the administrative side of our company really well,” Adam says. “I think in our field a lot of other companies don’t take that part very seriously, but we’ve really grown our company in a rounded way. I think we’ll continue to do that as our project sizes grow and as we chase projects that are going to be, again, putting us outside of our comfort zone. I think the company will be able to adapt to suit those projects.” “We want to stay pretty lean,” Jaclyn adds. “We don’t want to be a humungous company with a lot of people to support. The fact that we don’t have a lot of people has allowed us to be much more particular about what jobs we take. We don’t want that to change.” “We only want to work with clients who share our values,” she concludes. “We say no to a lot of projects at this point, and it’s nice to be able to continue to do that.” JULY 2024
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