CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT

Over 60% of the anual sales from Tri-County Contractors each year is made up of the supply, insulation, and erection of pre-engineered metal buildings, specifically to general contractors and developers that have been our clients for years. This affords Tri-County Contractors the ability to work on very tight margins given a consistently high annual sales volume, and low overhead. Because we do not want to compete with our general contractor customers, we no longer operate as general contractors. While we do help in the design aspect of approximately 25% of the projects we do each year, we are not interested in negotiating to be the general contractor of any project.

A few customers every year come to us with the request that we help them build their project so that they can eliminate the need to hire a general contractor. Typically, these are businessmen who have a number of contacts with tradesmen and believe that they could do a lot of the contract negotiations and coordinations on their project, but feel that their lack of experience in general construction leaves some voids that need to be filled. In situations such as these, we will entertain the possibility of acting as construction managers to handle those areas of the project that the owner might be uncomfortable with.

Under our standard construction management agreement, we negotiate a fixed fee, based on the scope of work we are requested to oversee, and proceed from there. This affords the owner the opportunity to have specific aspects of the job bid, reviewed, scheduled, coordinated, inspected, and requisition reviewed for a minimum fee (usually representing a net savings of 5-12% on the project over hiring a general contractor). It affords Tri-County the opportunity to be "on the team" to get the project built with no conflict of interest. We will not entertain a percentage arrangement where, unlike some architects and contractors we get paid a percentage of the cost of the work performed. In situations such as this the interests of the construction manager are at odds with the owner's in that they get paid more if the overall cost of the project rises. With a fixed price construction management fee, there is no incentive to allow the construction costs to
increase. There is however an incentive to get the project built quickly and efficiently therefore maintaining the smallest possible overhead against which the construction management fee is applied. Tri-County is only profitable if we get the project done efficiently and quickly, which aligns us with the owner's best interests.

Within the confines of construction management, is also the possibility of a "fast track" project. Tri-County Contractors specializes in "fast track" construction management. Typically, a project will be turned over to us that needs to be done in an incredibly short period of time. If the whole project was designed and then put out for bid, several months would pass before a shovel would go in the ground. In "fast track" construction, the foundation is designed and started even before the internal components of the building are much beyond the preliminary design phase. Typically, this gets construction started within a short two week period of time, and allows the design to follow the construction process, taking months off the ultimate design/construction of a project.