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Wolgast Blog - Construction Trends, Tips and Information

Get commercial construction questions answered by a professional contractor sharing building trends, tips and information

Posts about Risk Management

Revealing the Past: The Importance of Property Surveys

If you’re looking to purchase a property or building for your business, most financial institutions require you to have a property survey to qualify for their loans. Some owners who use a cash transaction don’t always get a property survey, but if they did, they could prevent many issues by knowing all the details and history about their property.

You Risk Paying Twice When Sub-Contractors Don’t Pay Their Bills

Liens Can Wreak Havoc on Funding

By Brian Stadler, Wolgast CEO

If you haven’t built a building in the last couple of years, you may be surprised when your banker tells you that they want to hire a Title Company to handle all of your payments to not only the General Contractor, but also directly to the General Contractor’s second tier Sub-Contractors.  On top of that, that they expect you, the owner, to guarantee to the Bank and the Title Company that the project will be lien-free during construction.

Preparing Your Business for a New Buyer

Bruce has owned his business for more than 30 years and he’s ready to retire.  He is five years under the retirement age and has no interested children to take over this operation.  He has poured his blood and sweat into his business for most of his life.  Bruce has a few options.  He can close the doors, walk away, and lay off his staff of 25, he can sell the business and the building to an interested party and use the money to supplement his retirement savings, or he can find someone who wants to buy the business and then lease the building to him or her, keeping rental income for continual cash flow.

Sharing Your Budget Streamlines the Pre-Construction Phase

Here is one secret of the trade to save significant time during pre-construction, by giving your contractor a ballpark budget before design and/or estimating starts, an owner can take a shortcut in the preliminary phase and get to construction sooner. When the timing matters, how much you’re willing to spend will make the process move along much faster.

Protecting Your Investment from Vehicle-into-Building Crashes

Without proper obstruction, motorists accidentally drive their cars into buildings 60 times a day in the US, causing damage and loss to businesses and homeowners.

Safety On Site - What It Can Mean For Your Construction Project

Safety is an important aspect of any business but especially in construction, where a little accident can have serious impacts to those involved; the trades people on site, the owner, and the contractor.  First and foremost, it is our concern to keep all of our workers healthy, so they can go home to their family each night and be a consistent provider both physically and financially, as well as a reliable contributor to our team.  That’s why it’s important to have a General Contractor who is not only following the codes and regulations, but has incorporated a culture of safety into their operations.

6 Questions Commercial Buyers Should Ask When Shopping a New Building

Once you’ve already determined the approximate size of the space you need, your budget, general location desired, and that the investment will fit within your business objectives, it’s time to start shopping for suitable building for your company changes.

Top 7 Guarantees of Using Design Build Construction Delivery

What are the top 7 guarantees of using Design-Build method?
  1. Fast track construction
  2. Less risk for the owner
  3. Single point of responsibility
  4. Guaranteed schedule & budget
  5. Team collaboration
  6. Quality construction for better value
  7. More bids collected by one entity to narrow down the lowest price

As business owners become more aware of the benefits of Design-Build Construction, the delivery method continues to chisel a bigger piece of market share throughout the U.S. and is expected to reach 47% usage rate by 2025, according to FMI1, a 5% increase from just 2 years ago.  In their DBIA Design-Build Utilization Update - September 2021, they evaluated the United States Census Bureau, stakeholder surveys, industry reports, associations, and government agency databases, and determined the usage of delivery methods within the construction industry and found that the East North Central Midwest region will experience a 6.0% growth in Progressive Design-Build projects by 2025.  Also, highway/street, educational, and manufacturing will have the highest compound annual growth rate (CAGR) adopting Design-Build project delivery. 

Top Benefits of Single Source Responsibility Construction

 
Less Risk for the Owner + the Right People Collaborating + Competitive Bids + Adequate Time

Business leaders have to make so many diverse decisions every day.  Some decisions are within their area of expertise, others are an educated guess, while even more require an outside source to help direct them. 

Three Ways Constructability Review Can Improve Your Building Project

What Is Constructability Review?

The construction process starts with an Architect designing plans based on the requested scope from the building owner mixed with regulations mandated by the government and the creative expertise of the designer. The Architect is responsible for knowing the performance, quality, longevity and size of limitless

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