Marous Brothers Construction entered 2021 with its largest backlog ever and a new custom-built, 35,000-square-foot headquarters in Willoughby, Ohio, a Cleveland suburb. It’s the company’s fourth Willoughby headquarters. When Scott Marous and Adelbert “Chip” Marous started Marous Brothers Construction (Marous) in 1980, it was simply the two of them doing home renovations and carpentry work out of the basement of Scott’s home. Today, with 130 office employees and another 200+ in the field, Marous is one of the leading commercial construction firms in the Midwest offering integrated services for complete construction solutions.
“Our previous headquarters was tucked away in an industrial park,” said Tonya Kaufman, executive assistant to company president Chip Marous. “Everyone had a private office, but a lot of the offices were in the interior of the building and received little if any natural light. The new two-story building is in a very visible location, right off the freeway. It has a modern, open-office design, with 10-to-14-ft. high windows on all sides. We have an in-house architecture firm, and we specialize in construction, so we wanted the new building to be a showpiece for our clients, and we also wanted to provide a great place to work for our employees.”
Everyone was excited to move in, but as springtime brought some warm, sunny days, the company realized it had a problem with the sunlight.
“Certain areas of the building were getting warm, while others were very cool, simply due to the sun beaming in,” Kaufman said. “We have a ton of natural light, so it really did have a big impact, and it put the HVAC system to work.”
Then there was the glare.
“We are 75% paperless, so everyone is working on their dual-monitor computer screens all day,” Kaufman continued. “When the sun hit at certain angles people really struggled to see their screens. With summer coming, we knew we had to do something.”
Interior architectural window film seemed to be the way to go, so Kaufman called Solar Solutions Inc. Window Tinting in nearby Mentor. The company, headed by founder and owner Rick Schabroni and his daughter Rachel, lead installer and manager, had been doing the window film applications on the Marous work fleet for years, and architectural window film was also an important part of the business.
For Rachel, the phone call from Marous was a dream come true.
“I often drove past the building as it was going up and thought it was really cool looking and wouldn’t it be something to work on,” she recalled. “The next thing you know, they called and wanted a quote for window film on the building.”
“Rachel came right out with some samples to show our owners,” Kaufman said. “She was very thorough over the next several weeks in explaining the different options and what they would recommend for our building.”
Schabroni’s film recommendation was Avery Dennison^Ⓡ Dual Reflective (DR) Optitune i Series architectural window film.
“It’s engineered to combine high solar heat rejection with low internal reflectance,” she explained. “It has a warm neutral color and is available in a wide range of VLT (visual light transmission) levels. And Avery Dennison window films are just so much easier to look through from inside. They enhance the view, if that makes sense.”
Initially Schabroni was thinking of the 45% VLT level for the Marous building because of all the heat. “But once we were inside, we could see they needed to block more light. It was just too bright. So, I recommended the 20% VLT film (DR Optitune 20i). It allows sufficient light transmission and creates just a slight mirror effect. It also added some privacy. Before we installed the window film, you could see right through the building from the outside.”
The owners had Schabroni’s recommendation but were still mulling it over. She offered to install a full mockup on one 10-ft. window so they could live with it for a few days.
“That was a really big window to do a sample on, but it definitely showed us that when the customer sees exactly what their windows are going to look like on a big scale, they’re more likely to make a decision — especially when there are different opinions,” Schabroni said.
Today, the company is very happy with the film they selected and the end result.
“We noticed a positive change almost immediately,” Kaufman said. “We’ve been able to keep the climate controls steady and the building is staying comfortably cool in all areas. I’ve heard positive feedback from our employees. Everyone is able to see their screens, which helped with the general morale of the employees. It was a needed improvement and something we’ll be discussing with our clients in the future.”
She continued, “The installation went very smoothly. There was little to no disturbance to our workers. Rachel and her team were extremely flexible and bounced around the building as needed to
accommodate us. We planned for it to take three weeks, but they finished the job in just six days. We would definitely recommend Solar Solutions and Avery Dennison window films.”
Schabroni herself was surprised at how quickly they finished the installation, which had its challenges. One favorable factor for a job that involved 195 windows and 14 rolls of film of all different sizes was how easy the Avery Dennison films were to work with, she said.
“Avery Dennison’s films are very smooth. The liners come off really easily. They’re very easy to cut and to position around the window, if you need to do that. Overall, it’s just an easier film to work with compared with some of the other films that are out there.”
If Solar Solutions has a roll or two left over from the job, it won’t be a concern.
“One of the owners of the building liked what we did so much that he is now on our schedule to put window film in his house,” Schabroni said. “I got to meet his wife when I went out to do the quote and she was telling me about it the whole time — how happy her husband is with our work and how great it looks on the building.”
Find more information about Avery Dennison Architectural Window Films at graphics.averydennison.com/windowfilms and join the conversation on Avery Dennison Graphics Solutions’ social channels, including Facebook and Instagram.
About Avery Dennison
Avery Dennison Corporation (NYSE: AVY) is a global materials science company specializing in the design and manufacture of a wide variety of labeling and functional materials. The company’s products, which are used in nearly every major industry, include pressure-sensitive materials for labels and graphic applications; tapes and other bonding solutions for industrial, medical, and retail applications; tags, labels and embellishments for apparel; and radio frequency identification (RFID) solutions serving retail apparel and other markets. Headquartered in Glendale, California, the company employs more than 32,000 employees in more than 50 countries. Reported sales in 2020 were $7.0 billion. Learn more at www.averydennison.com.