These days, HKC Construction focuses on design-build, construction management, and general contracting, with experience in the institutional, commercial, industrial, and residential domains.

Being a 50-percent female-owned company, HKC Construction also places a high importance on equality of opportunity and diversity, which forms the basis of its business practices, while constantly striving to surpass its clients’ expectations and remaining committed to providing outstanding quality in every assignment. Additionally, its client-focused strategy guarantees that every project not only satisfies but exceeds contemporary building standards, reflecting the changing demands of the industries it serves.

“HKC Construction started with a simple yet ambitious vision: to provide exceptional quality and customer service in the construction industry,” says Helen Mentis, Executive Vice President. “My husband, Kosta, and I founded the company in 2010 after realizing we wanted to chart our own course. Kosta was already deeply rooted in the trades, and I came from a teaching background, so we combined our strengths to build something meaningful.”

The company began as a small renovation business, serving property management firms and focusing on delivering quality work and building strong client relationships. From those humble beginnings, the team’s dedication led to rapid expansion, resulting in the opening of its first office in 2018, a significant step in the journey toward becoming the company it is today.

To provide smooth integration of design and construction services, HKC works closely with its clients, assembling a top-tier team of professionals committed to servicing customers and project stakeholders through direct partnerships with vetted and trusted consultants. Safeguarding the crucial “Iron Triangle” of scope, timing, and budget, the company’s distinct approach places a premium on accountability and speed, simplifying the process for clients by offering a completely integrated solution.

HKC also guarantees that clients receive full support from its team of experts from the start of the project to its conclusion, all through a single point of contact.

With its extensive general contracting services, HKC Construction is leading the industry in its commitment to cost reduction, timeliness, and the inclusion of crucial safety precautions. Dedicated to delivering the greatest return on investment for each project as a commercial construction company that prioritizes quality, HKC ensures there is highly qualified personnel on site to plan and carry out daily duties with precision and to smoothly incorporate safety procedures into all operations. With the assistance of skilled site supervisors, engineers, and certified subcontractors, each project is overseen by a committed project manager who makes sure that quality, efficiency, and safety are harmoniously combined in every undertaking. This all results in HKC Construction making top quality a standard rather than merely a goal.

Continuing to maintain that level of sustainability is another area of importance, with several of the company’s projects of note exemplifying a commitment to both environmentalism and expert craftsmanship.

“Sustainability has become a core focus for HKC Construction,” says Mentis. “We are actively working toward implementing an Environmental Management Plan that emphasizes the use of environmentally friendly materials, reducing waste, and adopting practices that lessen our environmental impact.”

Some examples include sourcing sustainable building materials and improving its waste diversion strategies to ensure minimal landfill contributions. While prioritizing these changes, HKC remains committed to maintaining the same high level of quality and craftsmanship that its clients have come to expect.

“It’s not just about building for today — it’s about building a future that aligns with our responsibility to the planet,” Mentis emphasizes.

Over the years, the company has also worked to develop a wide spectrum of capabilities that allows it to serve a diverse selection of clients and sectors. “One of the things we’re most proud of is our ability to adapt and grow to meet diverse client needs. We work across multiple sectors, from retail and hospitality to institutional spaces and industrial projects.”

The team has thus built a skilled and knowledgeable team with expertise in diverse areas, allowing the firm to handle everything from small refreshes to large-scale builds. “This adaptability has been key to our success and our ability to build long-term client relationships,” Mentis adds.

Being a woman-owned company in a male-dominated industry—while bringing its own challenges and rewards—is another essential point of pride for the company. “When we started HKC Construction, I knew we were stepping into a space where women were underrepresented,” Mentis says. “That only fueled my determination to lead by example.”

Leading by example includes fostering an inclusive and supportive work environment and celebrating the diversity of perspectives that the team brings, she adds. “We are proud to have a 45 percent female workforce in our office, with women holding key management roles,” she says. “As a woman-owned business, we’re proud to show that leadership and success in construction are not limited by gender. I hope our story inspires other women to pursue leadership roles in industries where they are traditionally underrepresented.”

Like many businesses, the pandemic was a defining moment for HKC Construction, bringing with it disruptions and uncertainties including project delays and operational challenges. But it also forced the company to rethink how it operates, from implementing new safety protocols to streamlining processes.

“We’ve come out stronger and more agile,” Mentis says. “During this period, we were also recognized by The Globe and Mail as one of Canada’s Top Fastest Growing Companies for 2021, 2023, and 2024, which was an incredible achievement for our team.”

In addition, the company has been certified as a “Great Place to Work,” highlighting its dedication to creating a positive and supportive work environment.

“Another great accomplishment we’re proud of is achieving COR certification,” adds Mentis. “This not only underscores our commitment to safety and quality but also positions us as a trusted partner for larger-scale projects.”

Looking ahead, HKC Construction’s goal is to achieve substantial growth while staying true to the core values that built its foundation. “We are focusing heavily on innovation by integrating AI and data-driven solutions across our departments,” shares Mentis. “This includes utilizing advanced technologies in estimating, project management, and operations to improve efficiency, accuracy, and client satisfaction.” Additionally, the company aims to leverage these tools to better analyze market trends, optimize resource allocation, and deliver high-quality outcomes consistently.

The firm is also committed to leading the industry in sustainable construction practices. “We will try and focus on using eco-friendly materials and reducing waste across all projects,” says Mentis. “These milestones reflect our vision to not only grow as a company but to set new standards for innovation, sustainability, and quality in the construction industry.”

While there are many vital factors that help set HKC Construction apart from its competitors, Mentis stresses that it is the company’s people and culture that are its true defining features. “At HKC, every team member is treated with respect and recognized as a vital contributor to our success. We’ve cultivated a work environment where everyone feels valued,” she says.

“We’re always looking for ways to push the industry forward as we continue to adapt to client needs and consistently strive to deliver high-quality results to stand out in a competitive field. We don’t just build structures; we build trust and long-term partnerships.”

The post Opportunity, Diversity, and Service—Building Trust and Long-term Partnerships<p class="company">HKC Construction</p> appeared first on Construction In Focus.

Established in 1993 with a mission to drive client and project success, Slater Builders integrates forward-thinking people, concepts, and technologies into every collaboration. The team provides key services such as constructability review, designing within budget, value engineering, project scheduling, and strategic monitoring of commodities markets to optimize purchasing timelines to mitigate delay. By securing subcontractor contracts early and streamlining project cash flow, Slater ensures efficient and cost-effective project delivery from inception. The company successfully manages projects of any size thanks to its organizational structure, and provides a unique approach tailored to each project it takes on.

Slater Builders’ full-service contracting team prioritizes delivering maximum value to clients during the preconstruction and design-build stages. By collaborating closely early in the process, the company can establish comprehensive project scopes that align with programmatic and design visions. Leveraging technologies like Blue Beam and Procore, the team validates designs, ensures budget-friendly solutions through continuous pricing updates, and monitors supplier and subcontractor costs to manage risks and facilitate strategic buyouts. This approach ensures projects are completed successfully, on time, and within budget.

“At Slater Builders, relationships come first, and historically always have, which is why we’ve been working with some repeat clients, A&E teams, and subcontractors for three decades. My family started building in Los Angeles, California in 1886, with my great grandfather,” says Ed Slater, Principal and Co-Founder. “J.A. McNeil, my grandfather, was also a builder, so building has been in our family for quite some time. My dad was a builder, and my brothers were all in the business. When it comes to relationships, we’ve been working with some of our customers for three decades. Our customers and partners know they can rely on us for quality construction, hard work, integrity, confidence, and trust.”

This includes a fair amount of work within the non-profit world, he adds, helping to promote understanding of what the company calls ‘the preservation of the gift.’ “The nonprofit world is run a lot on donations and the goodness of people to provide support,” Slater says. “We really believe our fiduciary responsibility as part of the team is to try to preserve that gift.”

When it comes to relationships, he adds, the entire company—its collective identity and its individual people—focuses on supporting people. “One of the things that sets us apart is that our family has a nonprofit ourselves,” Slater says. “So, we’re not only building and working with nonprofits; having a nonprofit gives us a different insight, perhaps, than those who don’t really have that experience.”

Slater Builders’ nonprofit sister company, Mae House, is an Adult Residential Facility (ARF) for women with developmental disabilities. Established by the Slaters in 2018 and licensed in California, this long-term independent residential community is dedicated to supporting each member’s growth as they progress through all stages of life. Working to give members a home for life, the goal is to enable people with developmental impairments to lead active, fulfilling lives by providing them with a home and residential community. The team believes that people with exceptional needs can and ought to be successful, lifelong learners, and is committed to establishing and preserving a member-centered environment while recognizing the value of getting to know members’ interests and understanding what they wish to accomplish each day.

In terms of notable current and future work, Slater Builders is working on a number of pre-construction projects, including St. Andrew’s Abbey in Valyermo, California; a multi-purpose gymnasium for St. John the Baptist in Costa Mesa; a Performing Arts Center (PAC) for Mater Dei High School in Santa Ana; an LAPD virtual training facility in Los Angeles; the Verbum Dei Jesuit High School in Los Angeles; and upgrades to LoanMart Field for the Quakes baseball team in Rancho Cucamonga, just to name a few.

Additionally, there is the Bay Shores Hotel project on the peninsula in Newport Beach, for which the company did pre-construction work, as well as two Newport Beach restaurant projects: Nick’s Newport Beach and Café Lido.

“We’re also currently finishing up three projects,” adds Slater. “One is Ascension Cemetery, a Catholic cemetery in Lake Forest, California, along with St. Mark’s Presbyterian Preschool in Altadena, and also a library project for Flintridge Prep in La Cañada.”

Other projects of note include Quay Works, a structural and architectural renovation of an existing 40,000-square-foot, four-story office building located in Newport Beach. This project included a complete interior and exterior demolition, structural and seismic upgrades, new MEP systems throughout, a new curtain wall system with operable doors, new standing seam metal siding and roofing, modernization of the existing elevator, the addition of an ADA lift, and extensive site improvements throughout. The three-story, below-grade parking structure was also refurbished, and on the harbor side, the property includes a new docking system and upgrades to the existing seawall.

Slater also completed a one-story-plus-basement addition, renovation, and remodel of a private Beach Club, a Type V building originally constructed in 1923 and expanded a number of times throughout its lifespan. The company’s expansion work included replacement of the existing commercial kitchen and “grill” kitchen; replacement of existing maintenance and other back-of-house service facilities; remodeling of the existing bar and seating areas; expansion of the existing basement to create a barrier-free basement with expanded storage; replacement of all MEP systems serving the commercial kitchen; renovation within and extension of the existing building envelope, which called for seismic strengthening, mat foundation, and area separations; and a new trash enclosure building and outdoor receiving area.

The company’s work on the St. Anthony High School Athletic Field, completed in 2023, was a ground-up new sports complex involving the redevelopment and modernization of an existing off-campus high school athletic complex on a 10-acre site. The complex includes a new 1,200-seat stadium for football, track & field, soccer, and lacrosse events; a new north multi-purpose building with locker rooms, a co-ed training room, coaches’ offices, equipment storage, an attached outdoor weight studio and a student patio; a new north concessions building with restrooms; and a new south storage building. Site improvements included new surface parking, an entry plaza, and upgraded utility service.

Essentially, Slater Builders is not only in the industry of construction, but in the business of people—and in the business of communication and listening.

“And then we build things,” says Slater. “And I think that the training and the time we need to spend with the next generation so they can continue to learn the craft of building—and also learn the craft of communicating and managing people and expectations—is really the thing that I’d like us as an industry to focus on moving forward.”

Ed Slater has personally worked in the industry for decades, and that accumulated experience and knowledge lends itself to his understanding of what processes need to be undertaken moving forward. “We’re in the process of starting a strategic planning group and a plan for succession; that’s a pretty big challenge. I think the other challenge is just to continue to keep up morale for the people who are maybe encountering challenges outside of the business, with the stresses of everyday life.”

Those stresses include, for example, the challenge of remaining connected in a meaningful way with co-workers, something Slater aims to tackle whenever possible. “We rely so much on our devices that here, we really push for picking up the phone and having a conversation versus emailing or texting,” he says. “Our CEO, Liz Slater, every now and again has a ‘no emailing day,’ meaning you pick up the phone and have a conversation, call somebody just to say hi, and check in and continue to build trust and relationships.”

Ed Slater himself is also highly committed to maintaining personal connections within the company, whether that’s reaching out personally to speak with employees each week by phone or simply keeping track of what various employees are up to in terms of family commitments, holiday plans, or personal issues. In short, he says, when people know that you care, and they know that you’re thinking about them, they will reciprocate whenever possible.

“Our industry really just needs to get back to understanding that the building part is secondary,” says Slater. “It’s the people first, and then, when we assemble the right team, we can build anything.”

The post The Business of People<p class="company">Slater Builders</p> appeared first on Construction In Focus.

During those 25 years, MCI has been a part of countless projects that have shaped the communities it calls home. From the city of Buffalo’s renaissance to redeveloping the city’s waterfront, these projects test the limits of construction and prove why MCI is best-in-class for safety, quality, and project delivery.

Overcoming adversity
Since its founding in 1999 founder and namesake Mark Cerrone, the company has faced its share of challenges, evolving, diversifying, and finding success in the face of adversity. The firm got its start in the residential sector before breaking into the commercial sector. Sadly, in 2007, the firm lost Mark after a short but valiant battle with cancer. At a crossroads, the company’s leaders stepped up and took over where he’d left off.

Under the ownership and leadership of President George Churakos, who has been with the company since 1999, and Mark’s brother Vincent Cerrone, with the support of Mark’s wife, the company transitioned ownership in 2008 with a renewed commitment to growing its size and impact. Today, the firm boasts three offices, four processing and storage yards, nearly 300 employees, and over one billion dollars in completed projects, making it is one of the fastest growing companies in the state—growth that is backed by a reputation for getting the job done, and doing it right.

Transformative projects
Certainly, construction is challenging, but when it comes to projects—even the most challenging and complex—MCI’s reputation precedes it. The firm is thus often selected to undertake extremely high-profile jobs that have no margin for error. As Churakos jokes, “We never really get the easy jobs.”

Currently, MCI is working on several projects of this caliber, one of which is the Crow’s Nest extension at Niagara Falls State Park, a project that entails construction of new stairs and an overlook structure along the side of the gorge to give visitors a new way to experience the falls while alleviating some of the pedestrian congestion that occurs during the peak season. The stairs will offer a one-way egress from the lower gorge during peak season and two-way flow during the offseason once complete in the summer of 2026.

Given its location along the side of the gorge near the American falls, the project is rife with complexities, from the topography itself to the mist coming off the falls, which creates something of a microclimate. As winter approaches, this will make the experience even more treacherous.

As Churakos explains of the Crow’s Nest project, “We are actually on the side of a gorge building stairs, installing micropiles. We have cranes and people basically 200 to 250 feet down the side of a gorge where we’re creating the trails in the access; this is located right next to the Falls, so we get the wind shift and the mist.”

The idiosyncrasies of nature are also an issue on the Ralph Wilson Centennial Park rehabilitation project, a 100-acre site located at the confluence of the Niagara River and Lake Erie, making it subject to storm and water damage. To mitigate these impacts—which are particularly challenging given the flat topography of the site—MCI has been selected as the trade contractor for the first phase of the project, responsible for remediation, demolition, earthwork, cuts and fills, utilities, and marine work.

To deliver on this project, MCI has pulled out all the stops, including importing a highly specialized piece of equipment from the Netherlands. The 100-ton machine utilizes GPS to carefully place massive boulders along the shoreline, ensuring that they fit tightly and precisely to ensure the area is adequately built up to protect it from inclement weather and the power of the lake itself.

“Centennial Park is a very large shoreline project with extremely difficult waters, winds, and weather that we face pretty much every day,” says Churakos. “We have to put six- to eight-ton boulders in that very lengthy area of shoreline,” a project which will continue through 2025 with an eventual phased-in opening in 2026.

Work is also ongoing for the Erie Canal Harbor District Corporation to improve the overall visitor experience at Buffalo’s Outer Harbor, a seven-acre site between Wilkeson Pointe at the water’s edge and the Fuhrmann Boulevard entrance. MCI has been selected for the first phase of the project, which includes site work such as clearing the existing paved surfaces, establishing site parameters, excavation for site utilities, installation of landscape and fence materials, new surface walkways and driveways, and site enclosures.

Not too far away, the firm is also working on Buffalo Harbor State Park, the only state park in the city of Buffalo, which is home to a 1,100-slip marina, a boat launch, a restaurant, a fish cleaning station, restrooms, and a waterfront playground that is adjacent to the Tifft Nature Preserve. This area is undergoing a significant upgrade which should be completed in time for Memorial Day 2026, work that includes the inclusion of a splash park, art installations, expanded retail and recreational opportunities, and a park office.

Discussing the unique challenges related to the project, Churakos says, “Buffalo Harbor is another unique project that’s introducing something called FGA, a foam glass aggregate, which is a lightweight material to build a subbase that really hasn’t been used in this area. They’re building a very steady art splash pad with features and rocks and other elements on top of an old marine filled-in area.”

Acknowledging that the stability of the ground “isn’t great, per se,” the use of this lightweight material to bring up the grade and create the foundation for these additions is a key element of the design. “We’ve adapted very well to installing this material and working in sequence to build it,” says Churakos of the adaptability and expertise of MCI’s team to get the job done no matter what.

From planning to execution
Planning is a big part of MCI’s success, but so too are safety and quality. These words are not just fodder for the company logo; they are the lifeblood of the company and the strengths upon which its legacy and reputation have been rooted for the last 25 years.

With both in-house and third-party safety efforts, “We maintain the safest of workplaces,” says Churakos. “We practice every day, and everybody goes home in the same way they come in. We have a very experienced and expert team put together, and a technical approach to projects, so we build the right team to complete each project. We also plan these projects out well; we build models and predict challenges in the work in advance of being in the field,” he explains.

This commitment to planning on the front end is why MCI can move through a project with few delays, regardless of the challenges it faces (and there are challenges aplenty). It is also a testament to the talent the company employs.

“Our employees are one of our biggest assets; we have a great team together and I think that’s just something that the company thrives on. We try to work together to keep continuity in the business and the same focus every single day,” says Churakos.

By staying the course, adapting to market ebbs and flows, remaining diverse in both talent and capabilities, and persevering in the face of challenges as it has done since its founding, Mark Cerrone, Inc. continues to reinforce its reputation and legacy, which are sure to serve it well for many more years to come.

The post Enriching Spaces and Lives in Western New York<p class="company">Mark Cerrone, Inc.</p> appeared first on Construction In Focus.

ACI serves the corporate, restaurant, government, and retail sectors, and counts CP REIT, Domain Logistics, UBC, and Packall Packaging as clients. Still, most company revenue is derived from work in the grocery sector. Food giants such as Loblaws and Metro are “always renovating their stores. We’ll go in and do a complete renovation of the entire interior while they stay in business. We’ll also build new stores from the ground up or build small additions,” explains General Manager Steven Lanteigne.

Carpentry and some interior work, such as shelving and perimeter décor, are self-performed as Arsenal is a signatory to the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners. The firm arranges for talented trades to handle electrical, mechanical, roofing, and other tasks. As a well-regarded general contractor, the company can draw from a pool of dozens of subcontractors it has worked with in the past.

ACI’s services include pre-construction, project management, and post-construction work. “We’ll sit down with the client and review the task at hand. Depending on the services required and if we’re involved in the design, we’ll let the client know how we intend to go about this job: how we’re going to plan it, schedule it. We’re definitely going to talk about financials, whether we’ll do a high-level budget. We might set up a tender where we invite trades then sit down with the client and review it all,” Lanteigne explains.

Pre-construction tasks can also include managing the building permitting process, costs, site plan approval, and municipal bylaw variances plus estimating, scheduling, and subcontractor selection.

During the construction process, Arsenal provides project management services. Here the team’s duties range from supervising trades and sub-trades to site coordination, site meetings, cost management reviews, monitoring safety requirements, and maintaining schedules and timelines. Contracts and other documents regarding safety, budgets, and schedules are all prepared and reviewed.

Following construction, the team compiles a list of any remaining work based on an onsite audit, ensures all tasks are completed, and takes care of the appropriate documentation.

This template is flexible; while always thorough, the company can adapt to customer needs upon demand. “Every client is different,” notes Lanteigne. “Every client has their own culture and format for how they go about their business. It’s important, right off the bat, to really understand your client on those aspects.” Some grocery clients prefer to have construction done at an accelerated pace, while others prefer a slower pace, he shares.

While ACI has completed projects in other provinces, the firm aims to enhance its presence in Ontario for the time being. That said, an eventual expansion into other provinces has not been ruled out. “The door’s still open to go national. If we had a client who is national and they required us to be national, we’d definitely look at that, but there’s more than enough opportunity in our own province [at present],” says Lanteigne. Indeed, having built a reputation for quality work, Arsenal is in the enviable position of not having to constantly seek out new projects. “We get a lot of repeat work from existing clients,” he points out.

Arsenal traces its roots to a firm called International Fixture Installations (IFI), founded in 1996. IFI did interior renovations for companies such as Loblaws. The work was steady, but IFI executives decided to launch “a brand new general contracting company,” to “draw new clients and diversify our business,” explains Lanteigne.

As a result of this decision, Arsenal was founded in 2015. It initially did private design-build jobs and renovation work for grocery giant Metro. Soon, Metro hired the firm to handle additions and eventually, new builds. Work continued apace with Metro and other clients.

All was going well, but five years after the business was launched, COVID hit, causing panic among the public and massive disruptions to the economy. The work changed, too; one grocery client hired ACI to install Plexiglas barriers at counters at stores across Ontario.

Like other construction companies, Arsenal had to cope with supply chain woes caused by the pandemic. The pandemic closed ports overseas and factories in North America, resulting in huge delays in receiving parts and products. The resulting lockdowns also wreaked havoc on schedules. All contractors know it is unwise to agree to projects with overlapping timelines, notes Lanteigne, but thanks to COVID, many construction projects were either halted or scaled down. Staffing shortages were compounded by scheduling chaos; trades workers who were committed to one project often found themselves suddenly reassigned to other jobs. Construction and supply delays, plus unpredictable schedules among workers, resulted in “disarray” and coinciding commitments, he recalls.

Fortunately, “things have gotten better. Things are not 100 percent today, but are definitely a lot more manageable,” he adds.

There are still some lingering effects from the pandemic. Supply shortages, for example, have helped fuel inflation, and inflation plus rising interest rates have put some construction projects on pause as developers wait for the economy to improve.

Arsenal is also faced with the industry-wide challenge of attracting more young people to the trades and generating enthusiasm for construction and renovation jobs. To this end, the company endorses initiatives designed to raise awareness of career opportunities in the trades and the need for a strong work ethic.

“I think training is an important element for this industry to grow properly,” states Lanteigne. “A lot of unions are investing in training centers. We’ve been working in partnership with the United Brotherhood of Carpenters here in Ontario, Local 27. We’re currently working at one of their buildings; they’re expanding their training facility.”

Citing a common lament in construction circles, he says young people “are not really willing to jump into construction as much as in the past, but I think it’s a great opportunity for an excellent career, and financially, it’s very well-rewarding,” he adds.

For all these challenges, the company is keeping busy and working hard. ACI currently has 22 office employees and roughly 50 people who work in the field. Prospective job applicants would benefit from having a background in grocery store construction and renovation work, and a team spirit and a sense of loyalty also helps.

“A lot of [companies] today are having a problem with employees who keep jumping. They work for a year, then jump to another company… I want [new employees] who will commit with me long-term,” says Lanteigne.

Being safety-minded is also crucial for anyone who wants a job here. The company has a full-time safety manager who conducts site audits to make sure all safety procedures are being followed, and Arsenal has earned a Certificate of Recognition (COR) from the Infrastructure Health & Safety Association (IHSA), an Ontario-based workplace safety and health training provider.

“A couple years ago, we got COR certification. We had to go through a whole process—it took about a year. It was important to us as a company because even though there’s a lot of pressure to work at a fast pace, we cannot get away from the core value of working safe.”

Given that the company wants to expand, ingraining a safety-first ethos among staff is all the more important, he continues. “This COR certification was important to us because, as we’re growing, we’re taking on more risk; we’re taking on more responsibilities. As a general contractor, you’re the umbrella for everybody that works under you. You have an obligation to the public, to clients, to field personnel, to maintain a strict mandate on health and safety and lead by example,” says Lanteigne.

In addition to safety, integrity, collaboration, sustainability, and continuous improvement are other core Arsenal values.

Over the next few years, the company wants to enhance its relationships with existing clients, attract new customers, and gain “more recognition among our peers in the construction industry as a whole,” Lanteigne shares.

The company wants to take on more design-build projects as well. These would entail “working with clients directly and hiring everyone: the design team, interior decorating, engineering. We’re trying to focus on that,” he continues.

Arsenal is also closely following developments in the modular construction industry. In modular construction, large sections—or modules—of a building are manufactured off-site, then fitted together at the building location. “We have an interest in it, whether it’s corporate offices being built with partition systems or complete floors, walls, et cetera. We’re investigating that sector, because we feel the future could be there.”

Regardless of the direction the company eventually takes, lightning-fast expansion is not in the cards. “We want to grow at a modest pace. Overnight growth is not healthy. We want to make sure we’re growing at the right pace in order to maintain the work ethic and quality that we expect from ourselves.”

The post This Full-Service General Contractor Approaches Its Tenth Anniversary<p class="company">Arsenal Constructors Inc.</p> appeared first on Construction In Focus.

Aron was interested in the field of real estate development and began with a ground-up project to subdivide a piece of land into two parts and build two homes. Throughout his initial experiences in the field, he became frustrated with the construction industry and what he says are its troubles with efficiency, transparency, speed of execution, and repetition of the same issues.

In 2017, he moved forward with his own company to bring more engineering and technology-driven systems into construction, as well as techniques to avoid typical issues experienced on the construction site. One such issue, he explains, is that framing remains more of a craft than a science, in that it can take a long time for contractors to do cut and framing while still being inaccurate in the final product, causing further need for repairs, leading to delays and cost overruns.

These considerations led the company to undertake its own manufacturing research and development into cold-formed steel-based building systems. The team found that engineering principles, combined with materials research, can lead to dramatic efficiency increases of 75 percent or more.

Aron explains that the mission of LIVIO is to create a building system that is constantly evolving. The company’s sole product, technically, is a building system involving steel-based framing that can be used for a multitude of projects, from single- and multi-family homes to housing projects, offices, resorts, and more.

After creating virtual models of the project, the company’s builders analyze its components and create an erection sequence of simple instructions that are highly visual and easy to understand. Then, a packing sequence is automatically made into LIVCubes, which outline the instructions and contain the materials into stackable cubes. The process is done extremely quickly and precisely, and no measuring tape is required on the customer’s part.

In using this unique approach to construction, one of the key goals is to cut down on labor time at the job site. Because everything the company does is factory-built and tested, the quality of its building system and how it works in three dimensions can improve the overall quality of a building. Through its process, LIVIO continues to make good on Aron’s desire to expedite and improve the construction process for building projects, an approach that its clients are happy to embrace.

Recently, the company has launched new additions to its product suite including composite panels as well as the integration of third-party sheeting products such as fiber-reinforced structural cement boards and floors, and sandwich panels with magnesium oxide on exterior walls. The magnesium oxide panels achieve the fire rating and insulation required for new building projects, and these elements all dramatically reduce the time taken on a job site to erect a building.

“Today, our customers can stand a five-story building in eight hours with very few people and two cranes,” Aron says. The building is ready for inspection directly following, which is practically unheard of in construction.

Of course, the workforce at LIVIO is uniquely qualified to work with its innovative products, and training that workforce is of considerable internal value. Aron notes that the company hosts a monthly hands-on training program over half a day in San Jose, California, where it educates anyone who is interested on the LIVIO product. Participants ultimately erect a small building as a final test. The sessions are well-attended, with guests from across the country and even from Canada, and expansion is planned to host such training programs in more areas.

Aron says that most industry professionals come from a background in lumber and are poised to work well with steel-based framing, and many are very pleased to see how easy the LIVIO product is to work with. In fact, these training sessions have become something of a distribution channel for the company, with contractors in various parts of the country going on to inform prospective area clients about it. As with any technology, there is often a fear from clients as to whether their teams can work with it or adapt it to their setup, but the training serves to eliminate any unknowns and address any concerns. LIVIO also offers a solid support program available to customers every workday.

Of course, while the company seeks to revolutionize construction in its own way, it must do so within the environment it has, rather than the one it may want. Aron affirms that the construction industry has faced challenges for the past several years, with increasing interest rates around the globe leading to a slowdown in construction and many projects not able to move forward as intended. This has led to developers of all kinds struggling. “Extremely high production costs are hurting the industry,” he shares. And while these costs can be alleviated slightly with the incoming rate cuts, he believes that inefficiencies are also leading to these high construction costs.

To offset these challenges, the company will continue to lean on what brought it to the dance in the first place. Aron notes that technology in any industry is a tool to drive that industry forward, so LIVIO intends to bring efficiency to construction and create ways for all professionals and companies to deliver a higher level of value than ever before.

LIVIO is fortunate to have an opportunity to do that for its customers. Aron says that there will be a higher level of efficiency in the construction space in the coming years that everyone will soon be enjoying, and his company is helping lead the way to that future.

In the first quarter of 2025, LIVIO will launch its next generation of building systems, which will include pre-assembled and installed plumbing in the floor and wall panels, as well as electrical elements like boxes, wires, and switches, according to Aron. This plug-and-play system will cut labor time by 75 percent for the plumbing and electrical trades. In Q3 of next year, air conditioning systems will also be pre-integrated into the product.

LIVIO will continue to enhance its composite panel offering and provide a selection of window options that can be installed in the factory. The company will also be continually enhancing and developing its product into a richer state where more of the rough trade work will be accomplished in a precise factory setting. On-site teams focusing on finishing a project quickly will mean more insulation and roof operations.

Certainly, there is a lot to come, and Navneet Aron believes the company is just getting started. “It’s like we started building the chassis of a car first before we put in the other things to come later,” he says. A strong structure leading to a superior final product is what LIVIO Building Systems is all about.

The post Changing Construction From the Ground Up<p class="company">LIVIO Building Systems</p> appeared first on Construction In Focus.

Providing end-to-end services and solutions under one roof means greater accountability, a single point of contact, less stress for customers, and the reassurance that comes from hiring the best—like GTA General Contractors.

Headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, GTA General Contractors is a highly experienced, one-stop shop for all design and construction needs. Since its establishment in 1991, the company has forged strong relationships with some of the industry’s top tradespeople.

Streamlined services
A leading, multi-disciplinary general construction and development company, GTA is active in commercial, industrial, institutional, and hospitality works. Taking on projects ranging in value from $200,000 up to $15 million and more, GTA’s comprehensive services encompass everything from the first meeting with clients to design coordination, securing permits, approvals, engineering, managing complete construction activities, and ensuring total quality control.

When GTA General Contractors was created in 1991, it was with the vision of providing high-quality construction services, emphasizing client satisfaction and excellence in project delivery. “We identified a gap in the market for reliable, client-focused construction services that emphasize successful craftsmanship and meticulous attention to detail,” says Tyler Maynard, Vice President, Sales and Marketing.

Taking on single-family residential projects in its early days, GTA then shifted toward commercial and industrial works. In recent years, the company has effectively stopped working on single-family residential projects, and is firmly established within the industrial, commercial, and institutional sector (IC&I). “We continue to accept multi-family residential projects as opportunities arise,” explains Maynard. “However, we no longer undertake single-family residential projects.”

Customer-centric approach
One of the biggest advantages that comes from working with GTA is its customer-centric approach, which is firmly rooted in the company’s commitment to understanding—and meeting—the unique needs of every single client. “After 33 successful years in business, the GTA team understands that every customer is unique, each with distinct priorities and project expectations. We are committed to delivering exceptional results by aligning our approach with the individual goals and standards of our customers,” says Maynard.

In recent years, GTA implemented Procore. A unique construction management software, Procore creates a centralized hub for those involved in projects, including general and specialty contractors, customers, and collaborators. This allows clients specific access to check on project status, schedules, and changes, see photos, and more.

A relentless commitment to quality backed by trust continues earning GTA General Contractors new and repeat customers alike. “Through active listening and customizing our services to meet clients’ specific needs, we have cultivated strong and enduring relationships founded on trust, transparency, and mutual respect,” states Maynard. “This approach not only ensures successful project delivery but also fosters the long-term partnerships we seek, extending beyond a single project. Our commitment to transparency is appreciated by clients, setting us apart from many general contractors and enabling us to earn a high rate of repeat business.”

Working with the best
In construction, you are only as good as the people you choose to work with. Over the decades, GTA has selected subcontractors with proven track records who are reliable and deadline-driven, have strong communication skills, and consistently deliver high-quality work. They also must uphold strong safety standards, demonstrate a proactive approach to problem-solving, and be able to work collaboratively.

“Our subcontractors are integral to our team and represent our values, so we strive to collaborate with top-tier professionals. By partnering with the best, we enhance our service quality and uphold our commitment to excellence for our clients,” says Maynard.

Covering the GTA… and more
Primarily serving clients in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA)—which includes Toronto, Brampton, Mississauga, Vaughan, Markham, and surrounding areas—the company can extend its services to neighbouring Ontario regions, including Barrie, Paris, Niagara, Cobourg, London, and Windsor, depending on the project scope and requirements.

Unlike other general contractors who focus solely on one location, GTA General Contractors’ extensive experience sees the company navigate all local regulations effectively. And much like building relationships with subcontractors, GTA has forged many long-term alliances with municipal authorities and local suppliers, ensuring timely approvals and access to high-quality materials.

“We aim to deliver services to clients who prioritize excellence, uphold a strong reputation, and demand unwavering reliability,” says Maynard. In the coming years, GTA plans to establish itself in these secondary service areas. Owing to Ontario’s vast size, this may involve additional satellite offices to better serve customers province-wide.

Substantial projects
Over the span of more than 30 years, GTA General Contractors has built a considerable portfolio encompassing industrial and manufacturing works, education and daycare, recreational and fitness, commercial, restaurant and retail, and other project types.

The company is presently completing its largest project to date, an all-new 550,000 square foot building for repeat customer Atlantic Packaging in Hamilton, Ontario. “This project exemplifies our capability in managing larger-scale industrial endeavours,” states Maynard. The team recently finished the equipment foundation portion of the project, which encompasses complex, low-tolerance concrete foundations and slabs designed to support the facility’s multi-million-dollar corrugator line.

Requiring adherence to strict tolerances, the new facility for the paper packaging manufacturer demonstrates GTA’s outstanding technical proficiency in delivering high-quality results. Started in the summer of 2023, the large-scale work is expected to be completed by the end of this summer. With numerous subcontractors on site, the project is in the capable hands of a highly experienced site supervisor with an extensive background in civil engineering. Like other works, the Atlantic Packaging project has a full project operations team, including a project manager, project coordinator, site supervisor, site assistant, and construction director, to ensure on-time delivery.

Working for large clients such as Burger King and hotel and resort giant Marriott, GTA is well-known for its strong name and industry reputation. “We are pre-qualified with various government bodies, and we are actively engaged in numerous public projects,” comments Maynard of the company, which works with high-profile clients like CBRE, U.S. Consulate General Toronto, County of Brant, and various levels of the Canadian government as well.

For GTA, every project is unique and presents specific challenges. These include stringent regulatory requirements, strict building regulations, site project timelines, and high expectations for quality and security clearance. “Our extensive experience and robust project management processes enable us to navigate these challenges with exceptional effectiveness,” adds Maynard.

Successfully completing over 600 projects, GTA General Contractors remains focused on building its team of highly skilled construction professionals. This will, in turn, bolster its expertise and capacity to take on large, complex projects. Realizing the importance of retaining top-tier talent, the company has a well-recognized, upbeat work environment.

“We have strived to cultivate a distinct work culture, setting ourselves apart from other general contractors,” says Maynard. “While we maintain a high level of professionalism, we distinguish ourselves from more traditional firms that are solely focused on numbers. Our approach prioritizes building strong, long-lasting relationships, fostering trust, and better supporting our clients. This commitment has led to high client retention and repeat business.”

The post Providing Seamless Client Experiences<p class="company">GTA General Contractors</p> appeared first on Construction In Focus.

Prior to Legacy Building Group, Weaver worked for many years at North American construction firm Clayco across several of its divisions and within its diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. Through that work, he began to hear more about diverse firms getting into private sector construction work; he found that many of them could conduct business well either inside the office or outside of it, but could not do both exceptionally well, which seemed to him to be an intriguing challenge.

Weaver says that his experience in contracting and negotiating, as well as his understanding of how to best compete in private sector work, helped him believe that he could excel in both areas, a belief that became the impetus for his construction endeavors. He notes that World Wide Technology (WWT) was both a big inspiration and a huge reason for the success that TW has seen in the construction space.

A fellow Missouri-based services provider, WWT Founder David Steward has been a mentor and supporter of Weaver and his business endeavors for a long time; Steward, ranked on the Forbes list of notable American billionaires, is a trend-setting Black entrepreneur in his own right. World Wide Technology gave TW Constructors the platform it needed to diversify its operations, which empowered the firm to take on projects for a varied clientele including office buildings, data centers, renovations, clinic space, and more.

After a successful start-up period in the early 2000s which included the establishment of Todd Weaver’s second company, Mechanical Solutions, in 2006, the 2010s saw a time of considerable growth and more change for the company. Weaver separated from his initial business partner at the end of the 2000s and renamed his business TW Constructors in 2012. Near the end of the decade, Weaver and his team made a conscious decision to change from this being a strictly regional company to expand operations beyond its St. Louis, Missouri home.

In more recent years, TW has further expanded by founding Fire Solutions in 2015 and acquiring Midwest Consulting & Services LLC in 2020, now doing business as Glazing Solutions. Weaver says that not many St. Louis-based construction firms have taken that same initiative to branch out and expand into other markets. “The tentacles have stretched out and [the company has] taken more risks,” he says, and this is an environment in which TW Constructors thrives.

TW is, at heart, a company that is all about diversity, especially given its identity as the second-largest Minority-Owned Business Enterprise (MBE) in the St. Louis area. The company’s commitment to that value, as well as the quality of work that it brings to the table, is what Weaver says helps it stand out from most construction outfits in its area and of its size.

In just the last two to three years, TW has worked for customers in states like Ohio, South Carolina, and Oklahoma, especially within the mission-critical space, serving businesses that provide fundamental services like healthcare, finance, and data. Weaver says that work within mission-critical and advanced manufacturing businesses and sectors has helped to put the company on the map.

Currently, he says, TW Constructors is in a strong position despite financial tightness in the market and a low pool of talent for construction firms to draw from. As a full-service firm, it can be nimble regarding the needs of its clients, whether that means design-build projects, renovations, interior work, or construction management services. Working across a diverse network of industries, the company’s segments dedicated to mission-critical, advanced manufacturing, and healthcare are still thriving, with more work burgeoning in areas like artificial intelligence and at least another three to five years projected for continuing work.

Although the focus of the business has broadened in recent years, the company remains steadfast in supporting its hometown. TW involves itself with many organizations around its home base of St. Louis to promote construction to its communities and extend a helping hand. Charitable work with organizations like CID (Community Improvement Districts), KIDstruction (an opportunity for St. Louis contractors and firms to support children’s hospitals), and the Hard Hats for Cancer initiative, along with holiday celebrations like Juneteenth, allows the firm to maintain strong ties to its community and promote construction as a community-minded endeavor.

The company donates monetarily, as well as through the time and effort of its personnel, to these organizations annually, as well as to community and faith-based programs like the St. Patrick Center and the food pantry Loaves and Fishes. The work that its employees do for these organizations, including stocking goods and making baskets, is well-received both inside and outside the company. “People sign up left and right [for charitable work] because of how fulfilling it is… to be engaged in outreach,” Weaver shares.

The efforts of the workforce are always appreciated but, as with so many construction outfits today, the challenge is in finding more of the best talent; it is not simply about finding bodies to fill an immediate need. “We don’t sell diversity; we do good work, and we’re a good company,” says Weaver.

For over 20 years, Weaver and the TW Constructors team have had the opportunity to learn as well as succeed in the construction space. One such lesson has been that the more diversification is present in the company, the better the opportunities to reach clients. As the rest of 2024 unfolds, the company will be looking at acquisitions in other parts of the construction market as well as other markets to get into for 2024, 2025, and beyond.

More concretely, the business is anticipating a move into new headquarters at 4500 Earth City Expressway, a six-acre and 71,000-square-foot plot acquired earlier this year and with an expected project completion date of winter 2025.

In June of this year, TW Constructors was named as one of the 50 fastest-growing private companies in St. Louis, according to Business Journal. In the last decade and a half, Weaver says that he has been astonished and amazed at where the business is at now from where it started and is very grateful for both the opportunities the company has garnered and the people who have helped TW Constructors grow to the size it sits at now.

Despite all its success, he says that the company does not plan to lose focus on its internal goals. It will keep its gaze forward while being strategic and selective about the clients for which it works.

The post Where Diversity and Hard Work Are the Keys to Sustained Success<p class="company">TW Constructors</p> appeared first on Construction In Focus.

This year marks Linden Construction’s 15^th anniversary, which will see its owner celebrating the accomplishments of his team and their contributions to the company’s longevity. A straight shooter who learned at a young age that it is safer to read the fine print and always question what look like great ideas, owner Brandon Linden is committed to presenting everything his company does crystal clearly.

Favored for its expertise in design-build, this Charleston, South Carolina construction leader calls Mount Pleasant home. Traveling throughout Georgia and North and South Carolina to serve its customers, the Linden team is always ready to take up tools and get to work. “We’re honest in what we do. And there’s a strong technical background; we’re not just a paper contractor,” says Linden.

The result is that the company’s field teams are well-versed in cost-effective building methods that render rock-solid structures without cutting corners. They also know where these methods are most suitable and where they’re not, giving the team an edge in rendering quality at the best price possible.

Having built over 3 million square feet of indoor and outdoor space, the company has erected everything from pubs to healthcare facilities, office buildings, public amenities to restaurants, and even a theatre. In addition, it has completed a few very beautiful mixed-use, multi-family projects. Taking general construction and design-build projects from a detailed preconstruction phase—where it goes through its clients’ needs, vision, and site demands with a fine-toothed comb to save on confusion and errors later—all the way to handling the entire construction management aspect throughout projects, Linden Construction has its boots on the ground from the moment a project becomes a concept to when the keys hit the front door.

Opening Linden Construction at a mere 25 years old, Brandon Linden worked his way up from site level. Originally from the Northeast, Linden quickly found his way into the construction industry, where he discovered that he could earn a decent living, even as a youngster. After working for several years as a young apprentice in a range of different fields, Linden landed on, amongst other sites, a job with an Italian craftsman who specialized in tile and marble installation and raising the next generation of construction minds the hard way. Learning a few valuable lessons in sticking things out by his side, Linden looks back at those days with a degree of warmth. After all, busting his guts on building sites back then brought him to where he is today—a determined, dedicated leader unafraid to stand up and speak up where and when it matters most.

The entire experience left him determined to learn from and improve on others’ mistakes and further develop what they did well. The approach worked. Now completing around $100 million worth of work each year, the business started as a tiny operation seeing about $1 million in work annually. Renovating interior office spaces in the early years, Linden decided to put his thorough hands-on training to better use by breaking out of that sphere and into general contracting two years before COVID hit. The result was an influx of new construction projects that grew the firm’s reputation for good, solid trustworthiness alongside excellence in execution.

Somebody once said luck is when preparation meets opportunity—an adage that certainly rings true for Linden Construction. Prepared with the funds it would take to cover startup capital and all the other expenses involved in becoming a fully-fledged general contractor, Linden and his team were ready to meet the big time the day it arrived. While reaching this point had been an emotional process for Linden, sticking to what he had learned along the way meant that he was accustomed to double-checking facts—a trait that has stood him in tremendously good stead in this line of work, and one that his customers benefit from as well.

“It’s about being honest with people. I tell people that there will be a problem; it is going to get rough. I am going to own it if it’s my fault, and they need to own it if it’s their fault,” Linden says, underlining that projects are partnerships and owners are not bottomless bank deposit boxes. Therefore, he and his team do everything possible to avoid delays and other mishaps. “It’s a short-term marriage. We’re going to have some arguments. But at the end of the day we share the same goal,” he continues.

In a comparatively limited local market where specialization does not get any contractor that far, Linden quickly realized that being efficient means being thorough in everything the company does. “When you look at the data points on gross square footage for office space in Atlanta or Charlotte, it’s 20 to 30 times more than Charleston has,” he says, illustrating the unique position that Charleston’s lower population density places builders in. In addition, Charleston has a height restriction that mainly allows for mid-rise buildings of typically around five to 12 floors, leaving the skyline decidedly devoid of skyscrapers and construction much more sprawled out across its landscape. This legislation chiefly aims to protect the aesthetics of the city’s historical areas while preserving its old-time charm.

At Linden Construction, order, easy access to documentation, and clients’ privacy are taken to heart. “Everybody here has the same mentality: we get the work done, we work hard, and then we can play hard,” Linden says. To ensure the team is always up to the next challenge, the company offers additional field training through shadowing to supplement and develop employees’ existing knowledge.

For Linden, the joy in construction is its concrete presence—an opportunity to connect with something visible and tangible that is so much bigger than the individual or the team. The ability to build on prior knowledge and experience while expanding capacity is another reason that, for him, the industry is a rewarding one, especially for youngsters.

The result of hiring good people is good results, and that includes reliable manpower. By the end of 2025, the company will have completed building 1500 apartments alongside retail and industrial spaces. It is also currently constructing a $75 million project comprising 25 living units in a village-style development. As the firm continues to grow, it also seeks out increasingly more complex projects—something it has focused on since turning toward new builds in 2017. That has given the team the knowledge, for instance, to work around historic buildings while being sensitive to such sites and the unique demands that come with the area. The fragility of old buildings makes vibration monitoring, for instance, imperative to protecting them and the surrounding building sites.

With COVID-19 changing the property market significantly, especially in terms of empty office spaces, Linden feels that the verdict is still out as to how the market will respond and adapt over time. As an admitted workaholic, he sees himself at the helm of things for many years to come. As such, he and his team will no doubt be a part of the wave that brings change to offices discarded in the wake of the remote work trend.

In love with the chase of business, Linden Construction is getting ready for this change when it comes. Until then, it continues bringing passion and integrity to every inch of every project it touches.

The post A Few Steps Ahead<p class="company">Linden Construction</p> appeared first on Construction In Focus.

Founded in 1971, Minnesota-based Amcon is an award-winning, full-service design-build, construction management, and general contracting firm. With its own staff architects, Amcon works with clients on every stage, from pre-design to design, pre-construction to construction, and post-construction. For clients, having all services in-house streamlines coordination and completion, ensuring projects are seamless, efficient, and as cost-effective as can be. As the company describes, Amcon truly handles it all—“the entire road map to get from need to solution.”

Under the leadership of Director of Architecture, Erik Peterson; Chief Financial Officer, Greg Fricke; and Partners, Matt Knutson, Wayde Johnson, and Scott Quiring, Amcon has grown to a staff of about 48. Designing and constructing buildings in 24 states, most of the company’s work today is centered on Minnesota and western Wisconsin, primarily the Twin Cities area of Minneapolis-St. Paul, surrounding suburbs, and recently, Des Moines, Iowa.

With its team of in-house architects, project managers, engineers, interior designers, and on-site superintendents, Amcon’s skills cover all aspects of a development including site evaluation, acquisition, design, construction, and financing. And just as important to clients is the firm’s ability to remain flexible for all project types.

Integrated approach
“A distinguishing aspect about us is that we have architects, project captains, and drafters all under our roof,” says Johnson, “and they only design for Amcon. About 90 percent of what we build is designed in-house.” When necessary, the company will contract other design services, such as structural and civil work.

By having all services in one location, lines of communication about projects are constantly kept open, making Amcon a true design-build business. Staff members exchange information all day, every day, instead of just during team or site meetings, says Johnson. This benefits not only the company but also its customers and contractors, who are kept up-to-date with status reports and have a single point of contact.

Beginning his career with Amcon in 1992 as an intern while studying civil engineering in college, Johnson has seen the benefits of single-source communication for himself, and in action. Working for several years as a traditional contractor without an in-house designer in his own company, he reversed course and returned to Amcon as a partner about five years ago.

“I can speak from personal experience: it is far better this way,” he says. Some of the contractors he knew from the 1990s are still working with Amcon to this day. “In the past few years, some subcontractors have followed us from job to job. It’s more of a partnership now than it’s ever been.”

From design build to general contractor—and even serving as construction manager or owner’s representative—Amcon is there to help customers with all their projects, including new builds, remodeling work, tenant build-outs, and more. To stay on top of industry developments, Amcon also continuously invests in new technology, including Procore, Microsoft, and other accounting software that integrates with Procore. This ensures accurate scheduling and budgeting, with reminders being sent to track progress.

Diverse markets
Over the years, Johnson and the team at Amcon have taken on myriad types of work, including daycare centers, churches, offices, retail spaces, and manufacturing facilities. Along with having all services under one roof, another of the firm’s greatest strengths is its flexibility.

“If you talk to the partners here—Matt or Scott or me—and look through our backgrounds and history, we’ve all been here so long, our experience reflects flexibility,” says Johnson. “We’ve done warehouses, offices, apartment buildings, daycares, retail buildings—whatever our customers want. If you took different snapshots over time, we’d appear to be everything from industrial building contractors to suburban office contractors to retail contractors; and if you took a snapshot right now, you might say we’re apartment contractors who also do daycare centers—markets that have absorbed our staff and our efforts here for the last three or four years. I suspect, like everything in life, those things will cycle, and someday soon we’ll be doing something else.”

Responding to customer needs, Amcon has seen much growth in stand-alone daycare centers, many of them located in new subdivisions. Other sectors, such as apartment construction, have slowed for now, owing to rising interest rates. Johnson is confident there will be a moderation of prices as time goes by since the need for housing has not diminished.

Moving into medical
Taking on projects ranging in value from a million to a hundred million dollars, one of Amcon’s biggest works to date was the Hudson Medical Center. “It was a great project for us, and it’s been very successful for the developer,” says Johnson of the $70 million job. Located at 2651 Hillcrest Dr. in Hudson, Wisconsin, the center opened its doors in January, about a year after breaking ground.

At about 160,000 square feet, the three-story multi-tenant facility houses a range of medical offices and outpatient services in a non-hospital-based setting.

“The whole structure is precast concrete, so one subcontractor assembled that entire building from a structural standpoint after the foundations were put in,” says Johnson. “The physicians running the various practices in the building were the developers, and also provided tenants.”

In April, Hudson Medical Center won the Minnesota REjournal Real Estate Awards in the Medical Property category. Amcon was also nominated in the Education and Daycare-Suburban category for its New Creations Valley View Daycare project.

Sharing success
The team at Amcon likes to use its success not only for its own benefit, but also to help others. One of the organizations supported by the firm through annual sponsorship is Hunt 4 HOPE, benefiting HOPE 4 Youth, whose mission it is to provide pathways to end youth homelessness. HOPE 4 Youth is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization in Anoka County that helps young people, ages 16 to 24, who are experiencing homelessness in the northern Twin Cities metro area. “We don’t do a lot of direct marketing,” says Johnson, “and instead try to put our dollars where we are doing some community good.”

In the future, Amcon expects to take on more medical buildings and standalone, built-to-suit daycare works. “There’s a huge need everywhere, especially in growing suburban areas,” says Johnson. “I definitely see daycare ongoing. We’ve established ourselves, and there is such a need that it looks like it’s going to carry on,” he shares.

“I also expect the apartment work will continue, but it may take a bit of a pause in the next six to 12 months while people adjust to interest rates being what they are. Everybody is adjusting to these changing times.”

The post A Team Approach to Every Project<p class="company">Amcon Construction</p> appeared first on Construction In Focus.

This soon led to him taking on several jobs, including working at McDonald’s, at a Chevron gas station, and performing flooring projects including tiles and laminate. While Cobaschi was building up his construction contacts, he also approached others in the industry by offering to do job site cleanup and more.

Aged just 18—and still in high school—he founded Renewal Constructions. The year was 2004. His first job was a $5,000 contract for foundation waterproofing, which was successful. Eager for more work, he approached a superintendent he knew. The superintendent, having no work, suggested that Cobaschi approach the window-installation trade.

A window opens
Cobaschi had never installed a window in his life, but he was a quick learner and shadowed the window installer as a helper in addition to moving windows off the scaffolding and down the hoist. Every day, he took detailed notes and studied them diligently afterwards.

“I went and bought some tools, got them dirty, and scratched them so I wouldn’t look very green,” he says. “I looked at my notes, then started installing windows.” Within weeks, the foreman from the installation company told Beni he liked his attitude and appreciated him always being tidy and dependable.

Soon Cobaschi obtained more window-installation work and subsequently began having more people work with him. Approximately six months later, Cobaschi found his genuine passion when he was approached to clean a building as the scaffolding was being dismantled. He recognized that when buildings are rehabilitated with new windows, stucco, brick, concrete, or other materials, a considerable amount of dust will accrue on adjacent surfaces that must be cleaned prior to project completion.

Soon, Cobaschi was earning more profit in post-construction cleanup than in installing windows. Realizing he needed to establish a team and deal with larger accounts receivables—and the money to pay his staff—he sold his prized 10-year-old BMW that he had purchased in high school to fund the growth.

“I understood early on in my business career that success comes with no small measure of sacrifice,” says Cobaschi. “There were many times when I struggled and doubted whether I had made the right choice. During those times, my faith was my strength and motivation, knowing that if my purpose was to be a good steward of the blessings I had received thus far, God would continue to provide,” he shares.

“I wanted to be the contractor who gives other people work,” he says. Obtaining bonding was the next challenge for his fledgling company. Being bonded meant that Renewal Constructions would be able to undertake larger projects independently. Even though Cobaschi had quickly gained considerable experience in construction, he freely admits he knew little about the financial and bookkeeping aspects of running a business. In order to become bonded, Cobaschi had to dive into the world of financial statements, spreadsheets, and accounts payable. “All of this was a big learning curve for someone who didn’t have experience and who focused on work while still attending high school.”

By 2008, Cobaschi had obtained bonding for Renewal and continued to accumulate his experience. He soon became a certified building-envelope technician in addition to being the founder, president, and general manager of Renewal Constructions.

Building-envelope specialists
Although Cobaschi is proud of his accomplishments, he is quick to credit his team. Along with his wife Diana who serves as Controller, the team includes Project Managers Sebastian Ravar and Ray Wong; Office Administrator Craig Penn; and Foremen Tudor Bodnariuc, Marius Techere, Stefan Alecse, Dustan Tucker, Scott Muir, and Andrew Wassenaar.

With a core staff of about 25, which includes a full-time estimator, full-time project manager, office administrator, supervisors, foremen, and labourers, Renewal also works with about 60 subcontractors, including scaffolders, roofers, cleaners, and others. Now widely recognized as building-envelope experts, Renewal Constructions’ services include complete building-envelope renewal, roofing and waterproofing, glazing replacement, building maintenance, interior renovations, and the occasional private home custom build.

The bulk of the company’s work today is in the Metro Vancouver area between Langley and West Vancouver. Work areas also include the Sunshine Coast, Chilliwack, and as far as Whistler.

“Our strength is building envelopes,” says Cobaschi. “We’ve developed a good name and want to keep it that way, so we want to stick to this industry and keep growing.” Renewal thrives on the challenges—even the difficulties—of tricky building-envelope projects.

At present, the company is working on numerous projects in the Vancouver area and is already scheduling next year’s work. Meticulous planning, safety, and consideration of all risk factors are crucial. This is especially true when working on window replacement projects that require erecting scaffolding many storeys high.

A diverse portfolio
Among the company’s portfolio of completed projects are Stratford Place, Westsea Towers, and the University of British Columbia’s Walter C. Koerner Library.

Stratford Place required many improvements as a complete building-envelope renewal project. Improvements included new aluminum windows, new metal wall cladding system, balcony slab repairs, balcony and eyebrow liquid membrane waterproofing, and exterior painting of all exposed concrete walls. This was a multi-storey high-rise project that necessitated scaffold access.

“There are different ways to tackle rehab work,” explains Cobaschi. “You can do it with scaffold, or you can do it with swing stages. And if it’s a smaller project, you can do rope or bosun’s chair access. Stratford Place was done with scaffold, while Westsea Towers was done with swing stages. Those two projects are among the largest we’ve completed.”

Westsea Towers was also a complete building-envelope renewal project, which consisted of new aluminum windows and sliding doors, balcony liquid membrane waterproofing, structural concrete repairs, balcony guardrails, some roofing replacement, and exterior painting.

For the Walter C. Koerner Library, Renewal’s scope of work included “glazing replacement and rehabilitation of the existing curtain wall system such as replacement of all structural silicone and new PMMA waterproofing detail at the curtain wall header and curtain wall sill.” It was an extremely technical job requiring the use of a crane to replace the glass and do the waterproofing.

Most of the time, Renewal is invited by a consultant or client to prepare a bid. “The consultant is the middleman and we like that,” says Cobaschi, “because the owner is protected, and we’re protected. Leaky condos are our bread and butter,” he shares. “That can mean changing the window, installing caulking, and doing rehabilitation work on concrete or wood framed buildings, including 2-ply SBS roofing and shingles.”

For the team at Renewal, small projects may take just a few weeks, while large rehabilitation projects such as entire apartment buildings can take approximately 11 to 14 months. However, no matter the scope of the work, safety remains the number one priority. Before taking on any project, the team gauges risk, liability, scope, and complexity of the work.

Working outdoors in Vancouver presents its share of challenges as well. With rainy weather from October to April, it is not unusual for temperatures to drop below 5°C, making it impossible to apply certain materials. Consequently, the company makes scheduling a priority depending on the weather conditions.

Shaping up for the future
While the company has carved out a name for itself and is renowned for its building-envelope rehabilitation, the team is aware that Vancouver is moving toward implementing new codes, including building improvements. Cobaschi is currently examining new opportunities in the realms of energy efficiency and HVAC.

Another provision for the future is ensuring that Renewal invests in its employees by providing ongoing training that builds on the team’s knowledge and skills. Most recently, Renewal has been undergoing in-house training to obtain Building Envelope Technician certification for key employees.

Team building is a priority for Renewal, and employees often get together for dinners, cooking classes, barbecue picnics, go-karting, skiing, and even axe throwing. Renewal Constructions will be turning 20 next year. In keeping with the company value of acknowledging and valuing staff contributions and efforts, the management is planning a company-wide getaway as a way of showing appreciation for the team. Many of the team have been with the company for at least 15 years, the kind of stability and amassing of experience that Cobaschi had in mind when he founded Renewal as a teenager.

Renewal strongly believes that success should be shared with those in need and makes charitable giving a priority. “Over the past two decades, God has blessed Renewal abundantly, and good stewardship of our resources, including time, money, and experience, means responding to others’ needs as well.”

From its small beginnings, Renewal has regularly sponsored humanitarian projects in impoverished areas. Most recently, the company has undertaken several larger initiatives to help underprivileged communities attain self-reliance and energy sustainability. These include funding school buildings in Haiti and India, a construction supply store in Haiti, water wells and education programs in Africa, and solar panels for a girls’ safehouse in Mexico.

“My idea all along was building the team and developing a business from there.”

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