With the pandemic compelling countless industries to screech to a sudden halt last year, the construction industry was no exception. An industry already known for being challenging on the surface, adding a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic and a never-before-seen level of disruption to the whole equation proved to be a heavy blow for the construction space. What people deemed as ‘The Great Construction Shutdown’ across the U.S. in light of the imposed restrictions during the pandemic, became a major setback rattling the construction industry.
Investors lost loads of money, a massive slowdown in available goods and labor followed, while most importantly, license and inspections came to a dead pause. In essence, developers and contractors had to hastily reassess the timeline projections for construction projects in regards to these delays, which created a huge backlog of projects on the way—giving rise to an overly perplexing situation.
But now, as the world is gradually limping back to normal in the aftermath of the pandemic, the construction industry is also leaving no stone unturned to make the most of the situation. Real estate developers have been extremely eager since last October to make up for the lost time and scale their business.
According to the latest industry reports, there has been an almost 300 percent uptick in construction projects over the past few months in Philadelphia alone. In order to meet this surging demand for construction projects, general contractors and sub-contractors are now taking in more projects than they can handle; and hence, they are over-promising and under-delivering. Not only are they falling short of meeting their target dates, but are also failing to adequately manage a project with the skeletal crews available. As a result, this mismanagement is disrupting the construction workflow.
Amid this challenging backdrop, TCG Project Management (TCG) is rising as leaders who are fighting through adversity for their clients with their state-of-the-art project management services, solving construction mismanagement doldrums for numerous builders, developers, and house flippers across the U.S. “We are a third party, not-at-risk project management company with cloud based, comprehensive project management services tailored to meet a wide variety of our customers’ requirements,” states Vincent E Cottrell III, CEO of TCG.
The One-Stop Portfolio
The company’s project management software is highly dynamic, easily accessible from a smartphone, laptop, or desktop, and can be smoothly incorporated into leading cloud-based work execution platforms like Smartsheet as well. TCG can manage an entire project end-to-end, from pre-construction stages to post-construction, enabling the client to pay heed to scaling their business and focus on other time-consuming yet vital processes like regulatory approvals for license and inspections.
Working in close ties with real estate developers, investors, and flippers, the company always manages certain strategic elements of a project that the client might not specialize in. It ranges from onboarding the right project manager to determining exactly which services a client should be keeping in-house.
Whenever TCG engages with a client, they rope in the architect, take a walk through the property, and come up with a budget to ensure the smooth completion of pre-construction planning. The entire process consists of planning reviews, overseeing specification lists, chalking out strategies for pre-construction marketing, creating virtual tours on potential marketing methods, and capital raising opportunities too.
In addition to seamless management of pre-construction planning stages, the company boasts of a vetted portfolio of over 50 vendors, subcontractors, framers, and general contractors in their app to facilitate easy bidding processes for construction projects. “We negotiate with vetted contractors on behalf of our clients while providing them the best-in-class contractor services—all at a discounted, and affordable price,” adds Vincent. Once contractors have been selected, TCG takes the lead in educating their clients to proactively evaluate their construction plans and execute them accordingly.
Besides, TCG’s project management teams go out for routine checks on job sites to ensure all stages of construction are on track. “Both contractors and clients like our model, because the contractor doesn’t have to deal with back office documents or be the point of contact for the client,” asserts Vincent. “Likewise, clients also benefit from our automated reporting capabilities, which helps them to be well informed and updated every step of the way throughout the duration of the project.” Customers can also receive push notifications from the cloud-based platform regarding any changes in the design or the project framework. Accordingly, they can either give their consent or send feedback depending on their requirements.
The Secret Sauce for Success
What sets TCG apart is that they follow a proactive approach to project management rather than a reactive one. It has helped TCG garner a plethora of projects across residential, commercial, non-profit, and institutional sectors of Philadelphia’s booming real estate market. Among the surfeit of success stories, one of them is a completed 30-unit multifamily renovation project. “We are also excited to break ground with the twenty-five new townhouses coming soon to Brewery town, the upcoming and uber-popular millennial hotspot for all young Philadelphians,” exalts Vincent. While meeting the increasing demand for cost-efficient, responsive construction management solutions, TCG is currently handling projects worth 40 million dollars.
The company’s success stems from its progressive work ethics, which is one of the most essential pillars of TCG’s offerings. Vincent wants to emphasize an all-inclusive culture within the company and strives to create a stress-free atmosphere where employees have fun working too. With ten construction industry experts actively employed in the workspace, Vincent plans to hire more to fast-track the company’s growth.
TCG is now poised to manage a multifamily project worth two million dollars in the temple university area that is set to commence by March this year. But even though TCG has constantly been serving an impressive range of new and established clients across the residential, commercial, non-profit, and institutional sectors, Vincent is in no mood to relent. “We look forward to scale up this year, while envisioning a two-fold growth rate,” remarks Vincent.
Apart from TCG’s one-stop offerings coupled with white-glove customer service, it is the continuation of the company’s enduring legacy that Vincent has an everlasting penchant for. As a scion of a family with a rich bequest in the construction world, Vincent gained an expansive knowledge of real estate development, planning, and industry best practices under the tutelage of his grandfather and all the following successors of the family business who were eminent entrepreneurial spirits in the construction industry. And hence, Vincent wants to assure that the beat goes on.
In view of that, the future holds a lot of promise for TCG as Vincent’s son, Vincent the Fourth, has become the director of project management of field operations at the young age of 21, and is set to pick up the baton that signifies a long line of notable entrepreneurs in the history of TCG. Following his father’s footsteps, Vincent the Fourth is equally aligned to the vision of bettering the way construction projects are managed, and help clients leverage the highly dynamic TCG Project Management model to actualize their vision into reality.
Finally, considering himself a ‘servant-leader,’ Vincent continues to make it his mission in life to create a positive market change by compounding his lifelong knowledge gained from an expansive career in the construction space and using it to tailor an ideal third party model to manage construction projects far more effectively. Citing 2021 as a year of change, Vincent wants to fix all the fault lines in the construction space exposed by the pandemic. To this end, TCG is adapting novel policies and upgrading tech systems and processes with each passing day. “I also want to ensure our clients are able to work to their maximum mental capacity while our team continues delivering the apposite tools for them to win over the market. Because when our clients win, we win,” concludes Vincent.
