Southeast Real Estate Business recently talked with executives of some of the Southeast’s leading contractors to investigate how their companies are dealing with economic uncertainty. Most are branching out and updating their services while still focusing on what they do best: construction.

Perini Building Company, recognized as the largest builder of hotels and casinos in the United States, was founded 108 years ago as a family-owned contractor in Massachusetts. Now, with approximately 350 full-time employees and seven offices throughout the Southeast, the full-service contractor has outgrown its original role as a builder of roads and bridges. Having built more than 45,000 hotel rooms nationwide, the company has set its sights on expanding in the Southeast.

So far, the company is off to a successful start. Having recently finished the 2 million-square-foot Gaylord Palms Resort & Convention Center in Kissimmee, Florida, which received the 2002 Eagle Award for Excellence in Construction from the Central Florida Chapter of Associated Builders and Contractors, the company is back at work building two of the largest private sector projects in Florida right now: Hard Rock Hotel and Casinos for the Seminole Indians in Tampa and Hollywood, Florida.

Perini Building Company is building The Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Tampa, Florida. The project will open in spring 2004.

Both Hard Rock projects are scheduled to have their grand openings in late spring 2004. “To grow our Celebration, Florida, office is our goal for the future, and I think as the hospitality market improves, we’ll look to capture more market share in Florida as well as the Caribbean,” says John Page, director of business development for Perini’s Celebration-based Florida operations.

While the construction industry as a whole may have taken a downturn due to economic woes, Page says that the special nature of Perini’s client relationships has meant a steady volume of work for the company. “A lot of the larger hotel work has been put on hold in Central Florida, but we’re building for the Native Americans and they really haven’t slowed down,” Page explains. “And hopefully the economy will turn around as we roll into our next projects. I think everything has slowed down except for casino gaming. It’s been a boom market.”

And although Perini has done its share of work for private developers and owners, its relationship with various Indian tribes and its knack for providing quality pre-construction services on large, complicated projects, may mean a special boost to its success. “There are tribes left that have not reaped the benefits of gaming, but I think they will soon look to jump on the bandwagon. I think you are going to see more gaming opportunities in the Southeast market,” notes Page.

But Perini isn’t putting all of its eggs in the hotel/gaming basket. The contractor also has a hand in the senior housing market and recently completed La Posada, a $50 million assisted living facility in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. Perini also recently purchased the South Florida-based contractor Cummings & Associates, which deals primarily with public sector work. “We used their knowledge of that market to sort of push into doing some more work down in South Florida,” says Page.

Perini is certainly not the only Southeast contractor looking to branch out into the public sector. Raleigh, North Carolina-based Centurion Construction Company used to do about 80 percent of its work in the private market, but, says Centurion President Greg Heffner, “now we’ve had to expand out into the public sector and we’ve been building schools and hospitals.”

“We used to keep maybe one or two of those public jobs going and now we’re having to do quite a bit more to keep our volume up,” Heffner continues. Over the past several years, the company has completed work on primary and middle schools in Wake County, North Carolina, and has built two community centers in the Raleigh area.

Centurion’s increased emphasis on soliciting projects in the public sector has helped the company find plenty of work in the Raleigh/Durham area. Although Centurion operates with unrestricted licenses in North Carolina, Virginia and South Carolina, the company focuses primarily on construction in the Research Triangle Park area. “We haven’t had to travel outside of Raleigh as much as some of the other contractors to keep our volume up,” says Heffner.

Centurion’s emphasis on emerging construction technology also ensures that the company has plenty of work in its home area. “We’ve actually been doing more of the office work than other people in the area because our product is a whole lot more cost effective than conventional construction,” says Heffner. “Our little niche has helped us in this downturn. We are just changing the type of construction and doing it a little more cost effectively.”

In 2002, Centurion completed a five-story, 150,000-square-foot building at Keystone Park in the Research Triangle area.

Last year, the company completed a five-story, 150,000-square-foot, Class A office building at Keystone Park in the Research Triangle area. Centurion utilized “job cast” concrete panels in lieu of “pre-cast” concrete panels. “These panels are unique because they have complex architectural reveal patterns,” says Heffner. “These panels were constructed by our own forces, which is something that sets Centurion apart from a large portion of today’s general contractors.”

“We’ve become more of an architectural, pre-cast contractor over the past 5 or 6 years, and this gives us an edge for both cost and time,” notes Heffner.

Centurion may be most proud of its extensive safety program, though. The company’s safety manager continually undergoes training in order to stay current in all aspects of the field and he conducts unannounced safety inspections on each project at least monthly. Employees in the field are trained weekly in order to recognize and correct unsafe conditions. In 1999, Centurion was awarded The Ohio Casualty Group of Insurance Companies Platinum Safety Award and in 2000 the company received The Carolinas Associated General Contractors Achievement Award for Outstanding Safety Performance.

Safety and the use of cutting edge technology are also top priorities for Hardin Construction Group. And although the company has won numerous construction awards for its work on projects such as Centro Ybor in Tampa; The Forum Office Complex in Atlanta; Mall at Millenia in Orlando, Florida; and Mall of Georgia in Buford, Georgia, “We are probably most proud of our safety awards (including The Associated Builders and Contractors’ Platinum Safety Training and Evaluation Process (STEP) Award and the 2001 National Safety Excellence Award) because that has always been a focus,” says Group President William Pinto. “I’ve been with Hardin for 29 years now and when I first came to Hardin, we had a corporate safety officer, which was pretty unique in our business then.”

Hardin, one of the largest retail builders in the country, is also known for its hotel, office and convention center work. Over the years, the company has grown to include southeastern offices in Atlanta, Tampa, Orlando and Jacksonville. Even so, notes Pinto, “I don’t think anything has changed in terms of service to our customers and always operating at the utmost integrity. Basically we do what we say we’re going to do. That’s how the business was started and we continue to focus on that. What has changed is how we’ve tried to introduce technology to allow our people to be more efficient, to be able to respond more quickly and be more flexible. That’s been a major change in our growth over the last 15 to 20 years.”

Technology is certainly an important factor in Hardin’s success. Not only does Hardin make use of cutting edge construction equipment, computers and software, it is also currently testing the time and budget-saving implications of a new self-placing, self-leveling and self-compacting concrete called Agilia, which is manufactured by Lafarge North America.

In Atlanta, Hardin is building the 486,993-square-foot Centergy One office and retail project for Centergy One Associates LLC.

Hardin is currently using Agilia in the construction of the Centergy One office building in Midtown Atlanta The 486,993-square-foot Class A office and retail project is being developed by Centergy One Associates LLC. The fluid concrete mix eliminates the need for conventional concrete setting techniques, including manual spreading and vibration, thereby decreasing construction time.

Hardin is also currently constructing the first office tower at Atlantic Station, a mixed-use development also in Midtown Atlanta. The 21-story SouthTrust office tower is the first of several office towers to be built at the development. Additionally, Hardin is in the midst of constructing an InterContinental Hotel in the Buckhead area of Atlanta for owner Six Continents Hotels and developer The Hogan Group.

Hardin Construction Company is building the InterContinental Buckhead Atlanta Hotel for Six Continents Hotels and The Hogan Group.

“I think [Agilia] is something unique,” says Pinto. “We’re always looking for those types of opportunities where we can provide a better product to the customer.”

And Pinto is quick to point out that economic downturn hasn’t changed the way Hardin — which does approximately 80 percent of its work in the Southeast — does business, although it has shifted focus, just like with so many other contractors, to public sector projects.

Hardin is currently in the midst of finishing a project for the Georgia Institute of Technology called Technology Square, near the Centergy One building. A combination of Georgia Tech’s Dupree School of Management, a hotel conference center, bookstore and distance learning center, the $120 million project will be complete in August.

“We haven’t changed how we operate. What we’ve adjusted is the focus on product type,” says Pinto. “With the office and hotel market being sluggish pretty much everywhere, we have increased our focus on some public clients, mainly in the education market. That’s an area we’re trying to focus on to ease out those ups and downs in the private market.”


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