Les Hiscoe, CEO of Shawmut Design and Construction, recently announced the company has reached a record revenue level of $1.5 billion as of Nov. 9 and will be strengthening its local leadership teams.
The national construction management firm has several offices in New England, including at Davol Square in Providence. Its local work includes construction management of the Point225 building in the I-195 Redevelopment District, as well as River House, a new apartment building just outside that zone.
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The firm employs 101 people in Providence, double the number it had five years ago. Hiscoe spoke to the Providence Business News this week about Shawmut’s business and the local market.
PBN: Can you summarize what has been driving the revenue increase this year?
HISCOE: We’ve been on pretty robust growth year over year, really, for almost 10 years now. The market has been really busy. That’s clearly a factor for us. Coming out of the 2010 years, we made a real effort to diversify the company in geographic regions, in sizes of projects, and also in sectors in which we do work. We’ve grown significantly from five offices to 10 around the country. We’ve grown our project size. Prior to 10 years ago, we hadn’t done a $100 million project, and now we are doing $200 million projects.
PBN: That’s a big jump. How hard was it to expand into those large projects?
HISCOE: It’s definitely different. At Shawmut, we had always done a lot of smaller to midsized projects in any given year. It’s [having] different teams. Teams that have bigger foundation experience, bigger structural experience, bigger envelope experience, things like that. Really, with the right people … getting bigger building builders in here, and [incorporating] them into our culture, has really been wonderful.
PBN: You have projected Shawmut in New England will have 40% growth in 2020 in hospitality and 45% growth in retail. What is driving that?
HISCOE: It’s three things in hospitality: its hotels, largely, restaurants and sports venues.
PBN: How does Rhode Island fit into that?
HISCOE: New England for us is four offices. There’s Providence, Boston, New Haven, Conn., and West Springfield, Mass. Part of the growth strategy is I want the “full Shawmut offering,” if you will, in every market that we’re in. The leadership announcement, in going to a full-matrix leadership model, or doubling down on public service, really comes from the idea that we want to be experts in each specialty of market that we’re in, each sector. We want to have strength of local leadership, local knowledge and local presence. We have deep roots in New England. We’re celebrating our 20th anniversary of the Providence office this year.
PBN: And what is the hospitality market for you here? Are you working on hotels in Rhode Island?
HISCOE: Yes, the new Aloft hotel, the 175-room hotel. I see hotels as a real growth area. Providence … is a wonderful city to live in. You have a state administration under Gov. [Gina M.] Raimondo that’s very pro-business. Say you develop the innovation district and attract really great business. You need to develop really great housing options with them. With that comes hospitality options in hotel rooms, restaurants and retail experiences.
Mary MacDonald is a staff writer for the PBN. Contact her at macdonald@pbn.com.
Note: The article was updated at 1:24 p.m. to describe the number of rooms in the Aloft hotel.
