Landscaping adds finishing touch at Sinclair Financial

by Ann Bucy

SBJ Contributing Writer

When driving by 3901 S. Fremont, the new home of Sinclair Financial Group, passersby can't help but notice the new landscaping: lots and lots of newly planted flower beds and trees.

In addition to all the greenery on the company's nine acres, there will be a pond and fencing around the property.

"The reason we decided to put in all this landscaping came from other businesses my wife and I saw in our travels out West: California, Texas and other places," said Damian Sinclair, owner of the the company with his wife Susan.

"We thought it would look nice, and it represents our town and company well," he said. "It also gives the investors and people here something pretty to look at."

So how did they decide which landscaping company they would work with?

"We went through a selection process and interviewed different companies to see who could handle a job of nine acres and be the most creative," he said. "Each company submitted drawings with their ideas and gave us an estimate. We chose Carson's Nurseries."

The Sinclairs have owned Sinclair Financial Group for almost six years. But they've only been at their new location about 40 days.

"It's a 30,000-square-foot building," Damian Sinclair said. "We wanted it to go from looking nice to looking beautiful."

Dick Carson opened Carson's Nurseries in 1969. "We grow a lot of plants from young, to mid-size to extra large," he said. "I have an idea of the speed and shape at which they'll grow. I know what they'll look like in the next five or 10 years. A lot of people have trouble conceptualizing them, so they have to trust a professional."

He said that before a project is begun, a landscape plan is put together by a landscape architect.

"A landscape architect is either employed by the building architect or is contracted out," he said.

"An architect then inspects the work before we begin, after the plants and shrubs are in and at the end of the plants' warranty period to make sure they're healthy and thriving."

According to Carson, most of

the commercial projects his company does require landscape plans in accordance with regulations determined by the city's Planning and Zoning Commission.

There are landscaping provisions in the city's zoning ordinance, said Rick Garner, plan reviewer for the city's Building Development Services Department. And those provisions are not necessarily new. "There have been landscaping requirements for quite a long time in the planned development districts under the old zoning ordinance."

However, changes to the zoning ordinance have broadened the landscaping requirement.

According to Garner, with the new zoning ordinance that went into effect three or four years ago, "Now it's all (required) under any district. There's been a fairly involved change in how we look at projects now," he said.

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