Hoffman Construction Co.
Specialty: Commercial, industrial and institutional work in the Northwest
Management: Wayne Drinkward, president and CEO; Tom Peterson, vice president and general manager of the Seattle region; Bart Eberwein, vice president
Year founded: 1922
Headquarters: Portland
2005 revenues: $794 million
Projected 2006 revenues: $1.2 billion
Current projects: University of Washington Foege Building; Fire Station 10 for the city of Seattle; Skagit Valley Hospital in Mount Vernon
The way Bart Eberwein describes it, his company is in the catbird seat. “We’re turning down more work than we’re accepting,” said Eberwein, vice president of Portland-based Hoffman Construction Co.
Specifically, he said, the firm is declining about a project a week, mostly high-end urban mixed-use with a residential component.
Photo courtesy Hoffman Construction Hoffman Construction is building Fire Station 10 for the city of Seattle. |
Those type of projects have potential insurance and liability issues and the entity on the frontline “tends to be the contractor,” said Eberwein.
“Every business instinct we have tells us we better be choosy because not all of these projects are something we want our name on,” he said.
The issue tends to be the residential component. Unlike office workers who generally only use a building during the day, condo residents are 24-hour users/owners, Eberwein said.
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Big money for mixed-use
Eberwein said an interesting thing has happened because so much institutional and offshore money is chasing more mixed-use projects in Seattle’s downtown. In the past year or so, developers have begun to see contractors as more valuable than before because of the relative complexity of those projects, he said.“The contractor has become more of the value-added piece of the puzzle because the entire success of the project rides on the quality of the seven-figure condo (component),” he said.
“There’s 101 developers going out chasing contractors,” he said. “It used to be there was 101 contractors going out and chasing the developers.”
Labs are hot
It’s a strong market for all sorts of development, said Eberwein. Hoffman is doing a lot of health care, institutional and high-tech work, he said. Labs are a big part of that as “there’s an awful lot of momentum towards solving most of what ails us as a society,” he said.
Eberwein |
Unattractive industry
One challenge in the construction industry is attracting talented, hardworking and creative people, he said.
“For some reason we’re not an attractive industry,” he said. “Everybody wants to grow up to be a lawyer or an architect or a Microsoft billionaire.”
The construction industry has an image problem and needs to convey the pleasure of the work, he said.
Hoffman and a lot of other contractors are trying to attract more women and minorities to the industry, he said, and Hoffman has a diversity coordinator.