Company CEO and Seattle area President: Bill Lewis
Specialty: Pre-construction services and construction of various commercial, biotech, health care, educational facilities
Year founded: 1886 in Montana, moved to Seattle in 1939
1999 revenues: $285 million
2000 projected revenues: $285 million
Largest current project: Northgate North, an $80 million retail project in Seattle for developer Touchstone

For Lease Crutcher Lewis, the key to success is collaboration with customers and project partners.

"We tend to be more focused on clients," said Theodore Sive, the Seattle contractor’s director of marketing. "We have a strong sense of mission to be the best contractor for management of intensive projects." Biotechno-logy is one example; telecommunications and Internet facilities are another.

"As buildings and systems and projects get more complex, as schedules get tighter and as companies focus on more of their core competencies, there’s a greater need for integrated services," Sive said.

This entails preconstruction services and collaboration with design teams to manage difficult projects and handle last-minute changes with aplomb. As Sive explained it, the bottom line is maximizing efficiency.

Last year, Lease Crutcher Lewis’ largest project was Microsoft’s Troon Office Campus, a 430,000-square-foot office project in two six-story buildings. It also worked with developer Hines on the $40 million Cedar Court, another office project that is reportedly being built for Microsoft, though Hines and Lease Crutcher Lewis won’t confirm who the tenant is.

Working with such highly visible and sophisticated clients is very satisfying, Lease Crutcher Lewis officials said.

This is not to say that only high-tech clients need such services. Consider Northgate North, a retail project by Seattle developer Touchstone. Northgate North is a vertical, 324,000-square-foot shopping center that in a conventional urban shopping center arrangement would gobble up 32 acres. Lease Crutcher Lewis is part of the team that is building it on 4 acres.

Touchstone President Douglas Howe said one strategy he used to overcome the challenges was getting an early start. His company put the design-build team together three years before construction began.

Among some of the other large projects Lease Crutcher Lewis is working on or has recently completed is the $47 million Sunset North office project in Bellevue for Wright Runstad & Co.

Lease Crutcher Lewis has seen revenues grow steadily in recent years. Last year, the company estimated its revenues would be $250 million. It turns out the 1999 revenues tallied $285 million.

"There’s this huge, kind of crazy thing happening from the Internet and electronic-commerce companies, but it’s not the sole thing driving the market," Sive said. The other factor is the desirability of Seattle as a place to live and work.

This is helping to diversify the economy with extraordinary amounts of wealth from people committed to the region. This will result in a mix of commerce, from traditional companies to nonprofit, he believes.

It’s important to be prepared to take advantage of that, according to Sive. He said that in case there is some market correction in the high-tech industry, diverse clients will help all companies survive such a correction.