Light industrial and commercial construction design-build experts, ARCO Design/Build Houston speak to their growth in the market, growth of their team and new workspace for their Houston office.
ARCO Design/Build (ARCO) Houston’s continued growth in the light industrial construction industry has necessitated the move to a new office location. The Houston office was established in 2015 as an extension of the award-winning national design-build firm ARCO.
“Back in 2015, we saw an opportunity to move to Houston due to the lack of design-build contractors and the opportunities that presented themselves here,” adds John Atcheson, Director of Business Development and Principal of ARCO Houston. “Focusing on our design-build delivery has grown our business from a traditional industrial box builder to our delivery of pharmaceuticals, life sciences and manufacturing facilities. Today, we are the design-build contractor in Houston.”
ARCO’s specialty in light industrial and commercial design-build construction projects supports a variety of industries including speculative development, manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, distribution centers, cold and dry storage facilities. Since their start, ARCO’s Houston office has seen steady growth due to the value of their design-build delivery method.
“Our growth has been reflective of us sticking to our philosophy on the design-build approach and the value we want to give our customers,” said Eric Safko, Regional Manager and Principal of ARCO Houston. “It’s been a product of our slow, but steady growth. If we wanted to be a plan-spec-build contractor like others in the city, we could do larger volume, but at that point, we’d just be another general contractor and not a strategic member of the team that adds value to the process and brings a new perspective to projects with new solutions.”
The growth of the Houston office is the successful extension of ARCO’s national network of design-build offices named #15 on ENR’s 2018 list of design-build contractors.
“Being a national design-build contractor with 19 offices, Houston being one of them, we are able to bring in a tremendous amount of knowledge from around the U.S. I think that’s a huge advantage to our clients and end-users. No other contractor in Houston has quite the reach we do, and we leverage that for our clients,” said Atcheson.
In 2018, ARCO Houston was awarded and named one of Houston’s Best Places to Work. The new office location features contemporary design with architecture for the office completed by the Houston based architectural firm Method Architecture.
“It’s nice to have a new place to call home for our associates. It has our ARCO work hard/play hard feel and will allow us to cohesively work as a team while giving us room to grow,” said Safko. With this new space, we could easily double our staff to support the size business that we see ARCO Houston being in the next 5-10 years.”
