Remember the days when you could get a major business deal under way with one, firm handshake? That handshake between honorable business people meant more than any pile of paperwork could ever mean.

Well, those days are still very much alive inside the Calgary corporate headquarters of OPUS Building Corporation.

“It starts with Willard Olauson (president) and Joe Shannon (executive vice-president), who founded OPUS in 1983,” explains OPUS director of marketing Hannes Kovac. “These two gentlemen are what I call ‘handshake-quality’ guys, and their attitude filters through the entire organization and to this day some of the big deals we do are started on a “handshake-basis” before final contracts are signed.

In fact, one of the company’s major projects in recent years, which stands out as a beacon of building excellence throughout Western Canada and has won numerous architectural prizes – the 234,000-sq.-ft. Agrium building – was done on a handshake-basis.

“We take you from the idea for a project on the napkin to the completion of the building,” says Kovac. “A lot of companies go the traditional route: They hire a consultant to come up with a concept, then they have an engineering company or architect do drawings for that concept to send them out to construction companies to bid on. They can then analyse the bids and know what their actual costs are. This requires huge amounts of time and money going through this process. If you deal with OPUS, we do all the drawings for the concept in-house and give a client a firm price quotation or a firm lease rate at the initial conceptual stage of the project and provide all services as required for the project under OPUS supervision, a one-stop-shopping approach” says Kovac, “or as we call it full-service-development.”

Every building OPUS constructs is unique and ideally suited for the client, and the entire process, from handshake to completion, is done in a period of between eight and 18 months.

“We sit down with our customers and together look at the requirements and determine exactly the building needs,” says Kovac. “And that’s precisely what we build, nothing more, nothing less.

“Take, for example, the new 100,000 sq. ft. AMJ facility in Calgary. That building fits that company like a glove, as opposed to the company that sees their lease about to expire and just crams them in another building or puts up with another few years in a facility that ‘gets you by.’

“We don’t deal with speculative buildings – that’s not our market,” he notes. “We like to work with a particular company and ensure its every building need is met.

Whether you’re interested in leasing or buying, and whether it’s office, industrial or retail, OPUS builds facilities that not only are beautiful, but, more importantly, will help increase productivity through the customized design.

However, busy Alberta companies often get so tied up in the day-to-day business that they go with the “easy” choice for their new space or building and just try to find a “quick fix.” But choosing the wrong building can have a dramatic effect on future business.

Some of the recent OPUS customized facilities that show what can happen if clients go the “OPUS way” are the 56,000 sq. ft. Delta Credit Union headquarters in Delta, B.C., the 250,000 sq. ft. ROPAK plastic injection molding plant in Langley B.C., the 100,000 sq. ft. western Canadian distribution facility for AMJ Campbell, the 45,000 sq. ft. EnSource Energy office and manufacturing facility or the 33,000 sq. ft. office, research and manufacturing North American headquarters for BW Technologies.

OPUS is currently working on three landmark commercial buildings in Calgary:

* Stantec Centre, a 135,000-sq.-ft. building under way at 325 – 25 St. S.E. that will serve as the Western Canadian headquarters for the Edmonton-based international engineering giant, ready for occupancy by January 2003.

* Mission Commercial Centre, a 56,000-sq.-ft. office-retail building at 2412 – 4 St. S.W. scheduled to be completed this October. This project is unique because OPUS is spearheading a new concept with this project – users can decide if they wish to lease or own their space.

* Stampede Station, which will feature 800,000 sq. ft. of office space, 150,000 sq. ft. of retail and 2,000 parking stalls on 7.5 acres of prime land between Macleod Trail and 1st St. S.E., across from the Stampede grounds adjacent to 17th Avenue.

Anchor tenants are already in place, but all three projects have space available for lease. Call OPUS at 403.283.0000 for more information or visit www.obc.com