Arizona Contractor & Community Fall 2015 V4 I3 | Page 28

Targeting Safety:
Disposable Traffic Cones

L

ee Addis came up with a “doublebarreled” idea a few years ago while a
senior at Basha High School in Chandler.
“I was driving home late one night and
nearly drove into a pile of landscape gravel
that had been dumped in the road,” Addis
says. “That is where I had the idea for the
disposable cardboard safety cone.”
Along with his father, Drue, Addis
started the Re-Nine Safety Company after
playing around with several designs. “We
actually started with shooting targets,
before moving into safety cones,” Addis
recalls. “The idea for the shooting targets
came almost by accident when my brother
and I found ourselves shooting at one of
the prototypes with a pellet gun. At that
point, we decided to also market them as
targets.”
Addis’s firm became a LLC in August
2011. “The next year and a half was spent
with revising the design of the cone and
figuring out manufacturing,” Addis says.
“We worked with different box/corrugated
material manufacturers to produce a costeffective prototype before moving into
production.” Re-Nine eventually selected
Canyon State Box & Container to
manufacture their product.
About a week after their first
production run of target cones, Re-Nine
Safety had its first sale while Addis traveled
to Flagstaff on a family camping trip. “We
stopped at the Old World Gun store in
Camp Verde. In our first try at selling them,
the shop owner thought it was a cool idea
and bought the first 50 cones on May 4,
2013,” Addis proudly says.
Twenty eight

Kitchell, Nelson
Partners Team Up with
Ak-Chin Tribe

T

here’s a swank new place to throw a
party in Arizona.
The Ak-Chin Indian Community
recently unveiled its new Elements Event
Center at Ak-Chin Circle. The conference
and event center is equipped to host
groups of up to 300 people with 11,000square-feet of indoor and outdoor space.
The versatile facility can host weddings,
corporate meetings, and conferences.
“The Ak-Chin Indian Community is
proud to extend our hospitality and event
services offerings,” said Chairman Manuel.
“This is a perfect complement to the other
meeting space options available at
UltraStar Multi-Tainment Center, Harrah’s
Ak-Chin Casino, and Southern Dunes Golf
Club.”
The project was originally designed for
retail, but was converted when the Ak-Chin

saw the need for additional event space.
Kitchell was the general contractor on the
development that was designed by the
architectural firm of Nelson Partners.
The four banquet rooms are named
Earth, Air, Fire, and Water, which
represent the elements of the tribe’s wellrounded agricultural community.
"Adding Elements, as the premier
event space at Ak-Chin Circle, will help the
UltraStar Multi-Tainment Center maximize
the guest experience, while increasing
visitors to the Ak-Chin Indian Community,”
said Alan Grossberg, CEO of UltraStar.
"Now we have the necessary space to
accommodate a wide variety of events."
The Ak-Chin Indian Community is
located 58 miles south of Phoenix in the
northwestern part of Pinal County. The
tribe has more than 1,004 members and a
land base of more than 22,000 acres.

Images courtesy of Ak-Chin Tribe

Construction Around Arizona

Sales, though, are off to a slow start
but show some growth. “We have several
dealers around the state that stock the
shooting targets, but still have limited sales
with the safety cones,” Addis says. Future
plans include out-of-state marketing and
working with some national suppliers and
distributors of seal coating supplies for
sales of the safety cone. For more
information, see www.re-nine.com

Fall 2015