by Michele Newbern Gillis
Staff Writer
After a decade in business, HCM Construction is still going strong.
With a diversified portfolio starting with hotels, they are now delving deeper into construction and renovation of condominiums, apartment complexes and office buildings.
“My partner Cullen Richart and I started out building hotels for a company, Winegardner and Hammons in Ohio,” said Andy Howe, president of HCM Construction.
They have built hotels such as a Hampton Inn, Residence Inn by Marriott, Courtyard by Marriott, Fairfield by Marriott and Springhill Suites by Marriott. They have also renovated all different brands of hotels.
“We started this commercial company and continued to do hotels because that was our background,” said Howe. “Apartments and condominiums are a natural offshoot from hotels. We have also moved in the office construction arena. When we were at Winegardner and Hammons, it owned and operated 57 hotels at the time. So, in addition to building them, we also had to do the renovations on them. Apartments and condominiums are very similar to hotels particularly when they are occupied renovations.”
The company has built from Ohio to Florida and as far west as Texas.
“We have a strong background with projects that are at the cocktail napkin stage,” said Howe. “We like coming up with a conceptual estimate and then shepparding it through the design process until the project ultimately gets built.”
Howe said they will typically take a project in the early stages and sit down with the owner and find out what the owners wants to do with it. They will then integrate with them very closely to make that happen.
Howe has been the president of HCM Construction since it came to fruition 10 years ago. Basically he oversees the operation of company and is heavily involved in sales and client contacts.
The three partner ownership consists of Howe, Richart, who is the vice president, and Anthony Manna, an inactive partner.
“I came to Florida in 1987 to build a Radisson Suite Resort Conference Center,” said Howe. “We moved to Jacksonville in 1991 to start a commercial company affiliated with Hallmark Homes. We split off about five years ago.”
A recent project in Jacksonville was the Eastwinds condominiums in Jacksonville Beach.
“We won Associated Builders and Contractors Excellence in Construction award for the Eastwinds condominiums,” he said. “The project consisted of 16 units which sold out for $500-600,000 instantly before we even started construction and are now flipping for way over $800,000.”
They are currently doing renovations of various projects in the Sawgrass area including exterior renovations on Quail Pointe II condominiums and Spinnakers’ Reach I condominium.
The company has just moved downtown to the 17th floor of the Humana building.
“We are looking to greatly expand our Jacksonville presence as an owner’s representative, construction manager and general contractor,” said Howe.
Will they get involvement in downtown redevelopment?
“We are currently looking at a couple different projects and I can’t expound on that. They are new and renovation projects. We are extremely excited about downtown Jacksonville.”
They are also looking at a couple of other projects on the beach and are in the
early in construction stages of an apartment renovation in Arlington.
The company has another office in Ohio and has done quite a bit in Ohio and all over Florida including the Florida Keys, Brandon and Ft. Lauderdale.
Currently, the company has 10 employees, but is trying to grow in the Jacksonville market.
“We are pretty client oriented, not project oriented,” said How. “We will travel to wherever the client needs us to travel.”