Established in 1991, Townlink is recognised as one of Ireland’s leading construction companies, delivering high quality projects across many sectors: Education, Residential, Community Enterprise, Medical, Pharma, Private and Corporate. As a company it prides itself in its strong working partnerships with clients, design teams and subcontractors.
John Barden joined Townlink as a Site Manager in 1999 directly from WIT where he studied Construction Management. John quickly moved through the ranks from Site Manager – Project Manager – Contracts Manager. He has led many award-winning projects built by Townlink, including the INMO/Old Richmond Hospital and the Guinness Storehouse Brewing Floor, both of which were finalists in this years’ Irish Construction Excellence Awards.
“At the start of February, we were shortlisted under the Leisure & Tourism category,” John explained. “The upgrade was completed in May 2017 and all-in the value was around €1.2million.”
Townlink Construction were engaged early by Guinness Storehouse and invited to participate in the design. Most of the fit-out involved development of high quality, complex, medium – large scale structures, requiring specialist expertise and testing in the fit-out process.
The client’s vision was to create a world-class visitor experience and Townlink Construction brought it to life. The successful project surpassed the client and end-users’ expectations.
“It’s a great thing to be short-listed because it was a very bespoke project with many key stakeholders involved. There are 1.7million tourists visiting the Storehouse annually so it was by no means a typical construction project.”
Townlink Construction would not pick up the award on the night, with the gong instead going to John Paul Construction for its work on the Adare Manor project. As John pointed out though, it was still an honour to be nominated for the project in such a competitive category. It comes at a time when business is presently booming for the company.
“Business is good,” he said. “It’s still very competitive out there and I suppose we are working every day to put ourselves forward as the best in the business when it comes to projects in the region of €3million to €10million.
“Our reputation has been built on trust. Our mission going forward is to establish Townlink as a company that provides a broad range of services to customers in multiple business sectors.”
Since its inception some 27 years ago, Townlink Construction has successfully delivered high quality construction projects in the corporate, health, education, enterprise, community and residential sectors.
The business has grown steadily throughout the years and is now recognised as one of the country’s premier construction companies, specialising in the construction, fit out and refurbishment of buildings.
Now, the company employ 40 staff directly between office and site workers, a number which has seen healthy growth since the recession.
“You could say that 2005 and 2006 were ok years for us. It was not until ’12 and ’13 that things started to get difficult,” John stated.
“It was a tough challenge. We were lucky in that we had some work lined up that got us through, and that the name we had in the industry was well known and trusted. We were also strategic in that we diversified our business model and our offering to clients during that time.”
Diversification has been crucial. Townlink not only offer first class construction services but also energy services and facilities management.
Indeed the company is recognised throughout the industry for their collaborative, expert and friendly approach to the completion of all construction projects.
A list of the company’s projects can be viewed on its newly updated website – www.townlink.ie.
“We have a couple of projects coming to a close over the coming weeks. The Richmond Hospital project, which is a restoration project for INMO, is one and then the upgrade of the Kevin St Library for Dublin City Council.
“We’re also on the Grafton House project in Dublin city centre and apartments in Elm Park as well.”
So what has been the secret to date? Why do Townlink Construction’s clients continue to choose the company first ahead of other competitors?
“I think there are a couple of points to it,” John opined. “But our capacity is a big thing. We have a strong expert team here and we’re always there for our clients.
“For us, it’s really about building strong working relationships with them and we’ve managed to do that well for the last 30 odd years now.”
From the outset, the vision for the company has been “to be a leading Construction Company delivering high quality, value for money services through innovation and collaboration, while working in partnership with Design Teams and Clients”.
The values of the business are customer focus, integrity, innovation, collaboration and partnership.
In 2001, Townlink became one of the first construction companies in Ireland to have their Quality Management System certified to ISO 9001:2000.
Since then they’ve obtained ISO 9001:2008, a Safety Management System which is accredited to OHSAS 18001:2007 and an Environmental Management System which was successfully accredited to ISO 14001:2004 in November 2014. Townlink is audited externally on an annual basis by EQA.
Townlink Construction Ltd
10 Greenhills Business Park,
Dublin 24
Tel: (353) 1 4627131
Email: [email protected]
Taken from Building Ireland Magazine, July 2018, Vol 4 No 6
