Sun Gazette March 15, 2007
By Jared Hoffmann

Extreme Home Makeover

The clock was set to begin ticking for Parkville developer Kevin Green and his team of more than 1,500 volunteers after Tuesday’s demolition of the Jacobo family’s home on Spruce Avenue. Their challenge: Replace a cramped 912-square-foot living space with a lavish 5,200-square-foot home, complete with six bedrooms and six bathrooms, in approximately 106 hours.

Though the strain of such a deadline could prove to be a massive undertaking for any builder, Green had the advantage of having been through the process before. His company, Kevin Green Homes, was given the challenge of building a similar-sized home for the ABC television show “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” under roughly the same time constraints for the show’s first trip to Kansas City in 2005. Green said that an added advantage was that the same team of contractors from two years ago – roofers, plumbers and electricians from across the Northland and south of the river – were working together on the Jacobo family project. Since the entire crew would all be working on a volunteer basis, Green said the key factors to meeting the deadline would be organization and motivation.
“It’s just a lot of work, a lot of preparation and a matter of getting all the subcontractors involved,” Green said. “You’ve got to motivate them to feel the passion about why they’re here. Obviously this is a great story, a wonderful family story, so I think it tugged on everyone’s heart to participate again.

Green was told by the show’s staff roughly 60 days ago that he was chosen to design and oversee the build. At that time, the framing of the home was constructed and stored offsite, waiting to be hauled in on several trucks. Green said that once the structure of the home was in place, contractors would work 24 hours a day to have the home finished by Saturday, March 17.
“It’s a tight schedule,” Green said. “You’ve got to keep everybody online. It will fluctuate plus or minus every day, but hopefully at noon on March 17 we’ll be ready to turn it over to the designers.

With little room on the home’s lot for outward expansion, the design called primarily for a vertical build.
Jim Lewellen, vice president of Kevin Green Homes, said the process of building the Jacobo family’s new home would be similar to the project two years ago. The only potential difficulty, Lewellen said, would be moving heavy machinery in and out of the cramped build site.
“Getting everyone in as close as we can get their materials and equipment to the job site and trying to get up and down these streets with everybody trying to get in when they’re supposed to will be the most challenging part,” Lewellen said.

Builders were scheduled to turn the home over to the show’s team of designers Saturday, March 17, to add finishing touches.
Michael Moloney, one of the show’s interior designers, said having worked in the area before also gave the builders and design crew an added advantage against the deadline.
“We’ll be working on plans and themes and figuring out where to go, where to shop to get what we need,” Maloney said. “We’ve worked in Kansas City, and we’ve worked with Kevin Green, too, so logistically it’s going to be a little bit easier than some of the others.