Santear Johnson can’t wait for the day when he can take his four kids and a fifth on the way to an Orlando Magic game at the new Amway Center and proudly puff out his chest.
“For me, it’s a privilege to be able to work on the new arena,’’ said Johnson, the owner of Superior Concrete, LLC. “When I take my kids there next year, I’ll be able to tell them that their daddy poured the floor that they are playing basketball on. When I really think about it, that’s just incredible to me.’’
Johnson oversaw a massive project late last month in which the concrete was poured to form what will be the ice floor surface in the new Amway Center. More than seven miles of cooling and heating pipes were covered with 400 cubic yards of concrete — the equivalent of 40 cement mixer trucks or 1.6 million pounds of concrete — during the pour.
Superior Concrete, an Orlando-based, minority-run company, had as many as 23 workers on the job and sub-contracted some of the work out to two other companies. The team of workers started the project at 3 a.m. and finished 18 hours later at 9 p.m.
Johnson’s company did such impressive work on the floor pour that he also won the contract to build parts of the parking garage adjacent to Central Florida’s sparkling new events center.
The opportunities afforded to Superior Concrete fell in line with the Orlando Magic’s and City of Orlando’s mission that construction of the new facility would serve as employment opportunities for several local minority and women-owned businesses.
To date, 36 percent of all contracts — equaling $94.1 million — have been awarded to local minority and women-owned enterprises. Of the 164 companies to work on the facility, 62 are African-American owned, 33 are Hispanic-American owned, 19 Asian-American owned, 48 women-owned and two are Native American owned businesses.
The Magic are the developers of the Amway Center, which will compete to host major national events, concerts and family shows. Opening in the fall of 2010, the facility will be operated by the City of Orlando and owned by the Central Florida community.
For many of the companies hit particularly hard by the nation’s recession, the opportunity to help build the facility has meant stability and viability through hard times.
The construction project has helped to provide hundreds of jobs at a time when local businesses might have otherwise had to slash their staffs with layoffs and reductions. Central Florida minorities have made up 58 percent of the workforce at the facility. Of those workers, 243 have been hired via the City of Orlando’s Blueprint Employment Office and another 112 have been hired from the local West Orlando neighborhoods.
One such company benefitted by the construction of the Amway Center is Johnson’s Superior Concrete, LLC.
Johnson wonders where his company would be without the work at the new arena.
“When the recession came a long a lot of the work dried up really fast and the opportunity that I’ve gotten to work with Hunt Construction has been like a blessing for my business,’’ gushed Johnson, 35. “The opportunities given to folks like us have helped the small man in Orlando not only survive, but also grow our business.’’
The only regret for Johnson and his younger brother, Aristotle Johnson, is that their father, James Johnson, isn’t around to see the work that the company did. James, who died five years ago, was a City of Orlando employee for 20 years and started his sons in the concrete business.
“People look at what I do as work, but I put my heart into it,’’ he said. “I just couldn’t see myself sitting behind a desk all day working in an office. I just feel like God put me here to do exactly what I’m doing.’’
Now, Johnson is hoping to parlay the work he’s done at the facility into other jobs in the future for his five-year-old company that employees 15 workers. He said by doing the massive jobs at the arena on the floor pour and the parking garage, he’ll have the credentials to bid on future projects for the Performing Arts Center and the High-Speed Rail Project.
“Everything that I have done is a great resume-builder,’’ Johnson said. “I’m anticipating getting more work now because of the jobs that we’ve done. I know that we do good work and I take a lot of pride in that.’’
