Merit Co.
Specialty: Team-build negotiated projects
Principals: Len Zarelli, Carl Zarelli, Barbara LaSalle
Year founded: 1957
Headquarters: Lakewood
Largest project in 2002: Peninsula Medical Center
Photo by Dane Myer DG Studios Merit Co.’s largest project last year was Peninsula Medical Center in Gig Harbor. |
Building on last year’s work, Lakewood’s Merit Co. is looking forward to a busy remainder of 2003.
“Last year was probably one of our better years in terms of activity and volume,” said Mike Medrzycki, Merit’s director of business development.
“This year our projections are to try to stay status quo. We’re the busiest we’ve ever been,” he said. Last year saw Merit complete the $15 million, 167,000-square-foot Peninsula Medical Center in Gig Harbor.
Also, the firm built an expansion to Bellarmine Prep’s science and math building, Snyder Hall, in Tacoma.
Under construction are the $3 million William Factory Incubator Space in Tacoma, a new Osborne-McCann Cadillac and Saab dealership facility in Fife and a total remodel of the Best Western Fife hotel.
Among the projects Merit is most proud of, though, are the remodeling of three Boys & Girls Clubs in Pierce County including two computer centers. The jobs were billed at a rate to just cover costs, Medrzycki said.
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Big picture, Medrzycki thinks Merit’s team-build approach has been key to firm’s burgeoning amount of work.
“We do no bid work. It’s all private sector negotiated. We try to work in the team-build type approach. It creates an experience for the owner to allow him to be comfortable with the process and creates referral opportunities.”
Looking to the future, he said, “I’ve currently got nine projects under way with quite an extensive backlog of work for 2003 and into 2004.”
And of Merit’s success in a down market, he added, “We’ve tried to focus on what we do best and not what others are doing.”