Division 00
What we build
Five divisions of work, four sectors, and a statement of the project size this firm is the right one for — and the size it is not. That last part is more useful to you than a claim to do everything.
00Divisions
Five divisions
Numbered the way a schedule of values is numbered. The references are for this document only and are not CSI MasterFormat numbers.
Design-Build
The architect and the superintendent work for the same company. A detail that will not build gets caught at the drawing board by the person who would have had to install it.
- You receive
- Permit set, schedule of values, closeout package, as-builts, O&M manuals
Ground-up commercial and institutional buildings in the Pikes Peak region — aviation, retail, automotive and industrial — with the site work and utilities self-performed.
- You receive
- Full drawing set, schedule of values, commissioning record, closeout package
Fitting out a shell or an existing space against a lease date that has already been signed. The work letter usually matters more than anything in the drawings.
- You receive
- Permit set, landlord sign-offs, certificate of occupancy, closeout package
Expanding or rebuilding a facility that has to keep operating. The phasing plan is the project; the construction is the easy half.
- You receive
- Permit set, phasing plan, schedule of values, closeout package
Earthwork, grading, utilities, paving and drainage, performed by our own crews with our own equipment and our own trucking — which is why the schedule holds.
- You receive
- Compaction and materials test records, as-built survey, utility sign-offs
Typical spans run from first engagement to certificate of occupancy and assume a normal permitting path and a buildable season.
01Sectors
Four sectors
Described because the firm works in them, rather than because four fills a grid. Each has a different thing that decides whether the project finishes on time.
Sector Aviation
Hangars, operations and support buildings on and around airfields
Sector Retail
Shells, fit-outs, remodels and multi-tenant work
Sector Automotive
Dealerships, service facilities and body shops
Sector Industrial
Warehousing, light manufacturing and service facilities
In all four, what decides the schedule is upstream of construction — a lead time, a lease, a utility, a report. Those are design-stage decisions, which is where a design-build firm earns its place: we are in the room for them.
02Scale
The right size, and the wrong size
This is a firm of 10–19 people. That is a real constraint with real consequences in both directions, and saying which is which is more useful than claiming to do everything.
| Project | Fit | Why |
|---|---|---|
| A commercial building of a few hundred thousand to low millions | Right | The size where an in-house design team removes more friction than it costs |
| An owner with no in-house construction department | Right | One contract, one party answering, and far less for you to administer |
| A tenant improvement against a signed lease date | Right | Design and permitting compress when the same firm does both |
| An addition to a facility that keeps trading | Right | The phasing plan is the project and it is a design-stage decision |
| A hospital, a high-rise or a large institutional campus | Wrong | A firm of this size would be brokering most of it, which defeats the reason to hire us |
| A single-trade repair or a service call | Wrong | A specialist will be faster and cheaper; we would be the expensive answer |
| Residential construction | Wrong | A different trade with different rules. We do commercial and institutional work |
| A project where the lowest number is the only criterion | Wrong | We will not strip a number of its contingency to win it, and somebody else will |
The last row is the uncomfortable one and it is the one worth trusting. A firm that tells you it is the right size for everything is telling you about its sales process rather than about your project.
03Before you award
Three documents worth reading first
These explain how the work is delivered, which is a different question from what the work is.
Not sure which of these you need?
Most owners are not, and the answer changes the project substantially. Describe what the building has to do and we will tell you which division it mostly is, which delivery method fits, and whether a firm this size is the right one for it.
T-Bone Construction, Inc. · 1310 Ford St, Colorado Springs, CO 80915