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On a sweltering July day in the city of Chicago, Robert Clark, chairman and CEO of St. Louis-based Clayco Inc., one of the largest privately held design build firm in the nation, sits in a sparsely furnished, nondescript office on Wabash Ave. and unveils his plans for the firm’s new downtown location.

He does not mince words.

Clayco has set up new offices in Chicago. L-R Danielle Wagner, administrative coordinator; Bob Clark, chairman and CEO; Cassandra Francis, executive director; Cynthia Schuessler, manager of marketing.

“I’m not coming here to dabble,” says Clark. “I’m here to outwork the competition.”

Clark calls this a “personal relocation” as he plans to take a residence in Chicago and dedicate a great deal of his time to making the downtown office a success. He recently made a 10-year commitment to stay at the helm of Clayco and it seems that the first thing on his to-do-list is landing marquee deals in the Midwestern city.

The firm has had a presence in the area for some time with its office in Oak Brook. That office is in charge of multiple projects throughout the region, and, while it has landed some big projects in the Chicago area, it has not had a large impact on the downtown core.

The most high profile project the firm has handled in Chicago has been the Blue Cross Blue Sheild expansion, which was no small feat, but Clark clearly wants a higher profile for the firm in the downtown market.

“We want our job signs to be seen all around town,” says Clark. “Chicago is one of America’s great markets and we see a real opportunity to expand.”

It may seem odd that a design/build firm sees growth opportunities in a historically low construction market, but if there is one thing Clacyo has demonstrated since its foundation in 1984, it is consistent expansion. In its first six years of operation the firm went from $1 million in sales to $40 million.

Today, the firm touts $750 million in annual sales, and, according to Clark, has $1 billion in construction contracts backlogged nationwide.

With a track record like this, it is easier to see why Clark has realistic expectations for expanding in this recessionary market.

The firm’s first move in its Chicago office was to name Cassandra Francis executive director. Francis, who most recently was director of Olympic Village Development for Chicago 2016, has extensive experience in the market. She held a previous position with U.S. Equities Realty, where she was key player in high-profile projects including MetraMarket, the Stroger Hospital campus master plan, the University of Chicago Press building, and the City of Chicago’s Brownfields Redevelopment program.

Francis is approaching her new position with two things in mind, acquiring projects and recruiting top talent to the new office.

“We are going after projects right now,” says Francis. “We are focusing on building relationships with quality firms and people in this market.”

The chance to land a large scale office project may be difficult to come by in a market where vacancy is approaching record high levels, but Francis sees opportunity in the health care and higher education markets, where the firm is currently pursuing potential projects.

Despite market woes, both Clark and Francis see this as a timely opportunity to no only establish business in Chicago, but also recruit top talent that may be more difficult to acquire in a robust market.

“Chicago is a hotbed of architectural innovation and we want to make a meaningful contribution,” says Francis. “I think we can land some highly skilled people right now that in a strong market would be much more difficult to obtain.”

Clark believes that there is a pent up demand for quality construction and that soon companies will enter the market, knowing that reduced pricing today will likely be unavailable in the not-too-distant future.

“There is a real cost advantage in construction right now,” says Clark. “In some markets you see 20 percent savings when compared to a few years ago. People should take advantage of it, but they have not done so in Chicago yet.”

Yet Clark knows that pricing alone won’t deliver a competitive advantage, which is why he highlights Clayco’s “top down” delivery system. The firm touts itself as a design/build firm rather than a general contractor on purpose.

Clark says that he does not want his firm to come in at the tail end of a development process. General contractors usually come in after designs and plans are formed and then charged with the delivery of the product. Clark ideally wants Clayco to be working with all parties–architects, clients, engineering firms–up front, to assure a fluid and shorter construction time schedule.

“Clients are under pressure to get maximum value,” says Clark.  “We can deliver that through our integrated construction process.”

Clark calls it integrated design planning (IDP), something that is used often in residential building, but not as much in large-scale commercial projects. Logistics of developing a large-scale project with multiple contractors from the very beginning can often be time consuming and difficult. Clayco has found away around this hurdle and is committed to the practice.

In the firm’s St. Louis office, Clayco brings together teams of contractors to work in shared space during a project’s lifetime. Clayco can produce everything in house, but the firm often brings in outside architects and engineers, who then share cubicle space and address problems as a team, rather than an individual unit using its own solutions to address building wide problems.

Clark hopes to bring these practices to the Chicago office, where the firm is currently building out its own space at the aforementioned location on Wabash and Wacker.

“We have had regional success in this market, but we have missed those significant downtown opportunities,” says Clark.  “I see this as a real growth opportunity for us. We have grown modestly in the downturn and we are not taking steps backwards.”

Tags | Chicago, Clayco, Office, Profile

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