A Conversation With ... Josh Livingston, AIA

What is Rio Contracting?
We’re a licensed design-build company and architecture firm, as well as a general contractor. Tom Wood started the business in 2006. We generally have between 30 and 40 employees total, including office staff. Based on the projects that we typically do, that seems to be the perfect-size crew and office. (Our general focus) is $2 million and down, as far as the range of projects that we’re involved with.
 
As a licensed architect – what else does your role at Rio encompass?
A lot of people say, “You’re an architect working for a contractor.” That’s really not the case. I do purchasing. I do project management. We all kind of have to do it all here. Tom and the other office staff are all involved in design decisions. We do whatever it takes to get the job done. One example (was) a walk-through, and the window-cleaning crew wasn’t able to come and get it taken care of, so we spent our morning cleaning windows … to make sure it was ready to go.
 
What is the company’s business model?
We’re really, in a sense, like the old-school general contractor, where we self-perform probably 80 percent of our own work in lieu of subcontracting everything out. We have our own labor crews that (handle) concrete, roofing, interior finishes and framing. Anything other than plumbing and mechanical (work), we perform ourselves so we can control quality, the pace and costs. It’s very difficult, sometimes, when you’re hiring (a subcontractor), to make sure that they’re there when you need them to be there, so we eliminate that issue. We’re a one-stop shop. (Customers) come to us with an idea, and they want to know how much it’s going to cost, so as we’re designing, we develop those costs and help establish a budget we can stay within. It’s not like the traditional design-bid build. We have put drawings together and bid (with) other general contractors for them, but there hasn’t been one case where we haven’t been selected as the general contractor [for those].
 
Rio’s business is solely commercial, with 85 percent remodeling and 15 percent new construction. Has that mix been fairly constant?
This year is the first time that we’ve actually gotten quite a bit of new construction. This year, we have three ground-up, freestanding facilities that we designed and are under construction right now. We are constantly involved in remodeling and maintaining – maintenance is a part of our business, too. Two of our major customers [Great Southern Bank and Mercy], have large amounts of facilities, and we do everything from changing out door locks [to other maintenance]. We work in probably a five- to six-state area for (Great Southern).
 
What trends do you see in commercial renovations?
It seems like no matter if it’s bid work or negotiated work, most of our customers are getting such great deals on real estate. Usually, existing buildings are so affordable right now, they look for ways to save costs by renovating. Great Southern’s a good example of that. Many of the banks they’re acquiring are existing, and they want them not only brought up to code and accessibility guidelines, they want to make sure that they meet the Great Southern standard in finishes and appearances for their customers. We find that most of our customers are actually looking for an expansion or renovation, or purchasing an existing building before they look at doing anything new.
 
Is finding more projects an ongoing challenge – and if so, how do you handle it?
It is. We’re always pricing work. We are on several boards (including) The Kitchen. … We end up a lot of times, donating our design services with those nonprofits, or we may limit our construction overhead and profits to a certain percentage (to) help make it more affordable to them. A lot’s happened in the last 12 months, with our trailers and those types of visual (outreach). We’re getting a lot of feedback from our billboard and Springfield’s Best. … We spend money on advertising, of course, and getting our name out there. There are a lot of projects going on, and people have ideas. We want them to know what we do, so they do call on us. Those visual cues, like the trailers, people see. We also do radio advertising during Cardinals games. A lot of jobs come from people who know people (and) repeat business where (customers have) referred us.[[In-content Ad]]