MarPac Construction
Specialty: Mixed-use apartment buildings and historic renovations
Principals: Donald Mar, Herman Setijono, Douglas Mar
Year founded: 1995
Local office: Seattle
Largest project in 2002: $5 million First and Denny Apartment Building
Like playing the stock market, construction requires diversification, according to MarPac Construction principal Donald Mar. To weather the slowdown in the economy, his firm has sought public projects.
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“We’re diversifying how we approach work a little bit,” said Mar. “One thing in 2003 we’re doing is public GC/CM work. We’re doing our first one with the International District Public Development Authority.” The $15 million project is called Village Square Two. Mar said his company is also doing more design/build work.
The shift to the public sector is economy-driven, he said. “Typically, our company does only negotiated work. In the private sector there’s just less work out there. We wanted to keep doing negotiated work, so we are doing that with the public sector.”
Looking ahead, Mar said he’s noticed boom times for construction seem to occur — at least since the 1980s — at the end of the decade.
“The economy is probably going to pick up slowly over next four to five years,” he said. “And then we should be back to boom time at end of decade. I’m hoping that same pattern happens again.”