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Local Tribune Reporter Covers Richmond Small Business

Must have been a slow news day, but we appreciate the story from North and East Richmond resident and Tribune Business Reporter Janis Mara at http://www.insidebayarea.com/business/ci_5599024.

 

Firm helps craft local landscape

By Janis Mara, BUSINESS WRITER

Article Last Updated: 04/05/2007 07:35:47 AM PDT

 

TOM BUTT, principal of Interactive Resources, works at his office in Point Richmond. Butt runs the architectural and engineering firm, is a Richmond City Council member and author of the widely read Tom Butt E-Forum newsletter. (RAY CHAVEZ Staff)

 

JUST AS the East Brother Light Station, perched on a tiny island at Richmond's western tip, is an integral part of the city, so is architect Tom Butt, who with his firm Interactive Resources helped save the 133-year-old lighthouse in 1978.

But rescuing a landmark from demolition and turning it into a successful bed and breakfast inn is not exactly heavy lifting for the head of the architectural and engineering firm. It's more like business as usual.

In the 34 years since he co-founded the Point Richmond-based firm, Tom Butt, Richmond City Council member and author of the widely read Tom Butt E-Forum newsletter, helped get the entire north side of Point Richmond added to the National Register of Historic Places, restored Point Richmond's beloved Hotel Mac and, in 1976, erected one of the first generators to feed power into an electric grid in California.

It has always been clear that Butt, now 63, wanted to be an architect. In high school, at an age when most people are figuring out how to ride a skateboard, Butt was doing drafting for an office of four architects and working for the highway department in his native Arkansas, repairing bridges during school vacations.

At the University of Arkansas, he worked summers as a trainee architect for the National Park Service, and he went on to get a master's in architecture in urban design from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1973.

"I got my artistic side from my maternal grandmother, who was an artist," said the ever-intense Butt, squirming in a chair in a conference room at Interactive Resources' headquarters, just steps from the Hotel Mac, a distinctive three-story brick building built in 1911 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

"Helen King (his grandmother) created stencils, stamped patterns on burlap and sold the patterns as a kit, along with cloth and a guidebook on how to hook rugs," Butt said. "I used to help her."

In 1973, his dream was realized when he teamed up with four partners, including architect John Clinton, to found Interactive Resources (the other three eventually left). The country was locked in an energy crisis caused by a Middle East oil embargo, and the company soon became one of the first to come up with energy-efficient designs — one of which, a solar home, found its way into the pages of Sunset magazine.

The 27-employee company, which pulled in $4 million in revenue in 2006, has worked on projects throughout the Bay Area. Its projects include the 250,000-square-foot Point Richmond Tech Center, currently occupied by tenants such as the California Department of Justice DNA lab, and a job evaluating and designing repairs for Candlestick Park after it was damaged in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.

Butt describes the East Brother lighthouse as "one of our pet projects." He has written grants, put in a desalinization and sewage system, and worked endlessly, along with his mentor, community activist Lucretia Edwards, to save the lighthouse. Butt also put in a good deal of work on another one of Richmond's proudest landmarks, Rosie the Riveter Park.

Another pet project just coming to fruition: Butt has managed to save a 100-year-old railroad workers' social club, the only remaining structure from Richmond's original railroad yards across from the Richmond Plunge, the municipal swim center on East Richmond Avenue that itself is under renovation.

"(The Trainmasters Building) was on the verge of being destroyed," Butt said. "I pulled that thing from the toilet so many times, I don't want to tell you."

After some adroit negotiating on the architect's part, Richmond-based The Mechanics Bank is taking over the Trainmasters Building and putting $1 million into the building and plaza. Interactive Resources did all the architectural design and engineering for free.

The councilman said that since he was elected in 1995, Interactive Resources has done no work for the city of Richmond.

After he became a councilman, one of Butt's most successful community projects was his e-mail newsletter, which has a circulation of 2,000. Much like the celebrated Craigslist, as more and more people signed up, others have approached him and asked him to circulate news of interest to the community. (To sign up, send your name and e-mail address to tom.butt@intres.com and write "Subscribe to E-Forum" in the subject line.)

Butt's company got a glowing review from a recent client.

"They (Interactive Resources) did a great job last year evaluating what the city of Merced's needs would be for its corporate yard and designing a set of buildings," said John Sagin, senior architect for Merced.

"It's difficult to stay within a schedule, especially ours, which was pretty tight, and they did it on time and within our budget," Sagin said.

The overall project is estimated at $28 million, he said. "Hopefully, we'll be able to use them on the next phase, once we get the project funded."

Contact Janis Mara at jmara@angnewspapers.com or (510) 208-6468.

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