Sigma Contracting prides itself on being large enough to offer the range of services needed and small enough to offer the personal attention of ownership to deliver projects to our clients’ quality standards, schedules, and budgets.
Our skilled team of long-term employees takes pride in guiding a project from conception to successful completion. This includes a small tenant improvement or a larger new-build project. Partnering with clients from the beginning and listening to their needs and intent allows the Sigma team to develop a clear and shared vision for a project. Collaborating with a vetted group of talented architects, engineers, and subcontractors brings that vision to life. This interactive and collaborative approach ensures quality workmanship and attention to detail every step of the way and a finished structure of which we can all be proud.
Pre-Construction
Sigma’s repeat clients rely on the firm for insight and consultation beyond that provided by a general contractor. Sigma offers its perspective at the earliest stages of many projects regarding site selection, design and concept, and will provide accurate conceptual budgeting information to help determine the potential building, site, and offsite construction costs. During preconstruction, Sigma utilizes its vast database of information accumulated over the years to assist clients in creating highly accurate and reliable cost models. These are invaluable when for the team when making decisions about systems, materials, and equipment. This input is derived throughout the process from senior management, estimators, and superintendents (many of whom are LEED Accredited). This is critical to determining the viability of a project through analysis of proposed sites, creating conceptual budgets, and determining appropriate construction systems and schedules. The actual scope of work and constructability of a project can be confirmed and a detailed construction schedule outlined that is realistic and reliable to meet the needs of both owner(s) and design team. This process has successfully helped clients save time, control costs, and increase value.
Project Management
Our project management philosophy focuses on developing an interactive and inclusive team relationship between the client and design and construction teams. Preconstruction services are paramount to the process to provide value, savings costs, and informed decision making to the client to achieve budget and design intent as efficiently as possible. We provide planning, estimating, value engineering options, scheduling, and pre-qualification of subcontractors. Sigma develops and monitors budgets and coordinates ordering of long lead-time items. During construction, we oversee the purchase of required materials, subcontractor services, the building, and subsequent successful operation of your project.
Design-Build
Much of Sigma’s work is design-build, which provides a single point of responsibility for design and construction for your project. This provides significant cost and time savings for owners over the traditional design-bid-build process. It separates design and construction into separate entities for both, typically with separate contracts and work execution. A design-build strategy, rather than selection by low cost, generally provides the best value for a successful project delivery. It increases the opportunity for better value engineer alternatives and possibly a shorter project schedule.
Long before the term ‘design-build’ was coined, Sigma was offering ‘design assistance.’ That’s when the entire consultant, design, and construction team sits together in the planning stage. Many potential issues are resolved and often creatively solved for the better, minimizing time and costs to do so when under actual construction. The is rewarded with a better design, and a more finely tuned budget and schedule. Because of years of effective construction and business-management expertise, Sigma brings one big difference to the design-build process. The process typically ties the architect contractually to the contractor and the contractor enters in a design-build agreement with the customer. However, to continue the cost savings for a client, Sigma takes a different approach.
While operating as a design-builder, we will contract separately from design, which saves a customer the double expense associated with errors and omissions insurance. This overall method brings the best aspects of design-build and cost savings to the client. It results in better design, faster delivery, a smoother and more efficient process with better communication among the team, and fewer problems during the actual construction. Significant cost savings are also realized.
General Contracting
Sigma’s general contracting process utilizes a teamwork approach and engages the owner’s project team (owners, architects, engineers, and consultants) in understanding the intent of the design and the needs of the owner. Together, our team will ensure that design intent, budget, scheduling, and construction quality control will be managed properly from the very beginning. Comprehensive project controls are used to manage critical issues of time, cost, quality, technology, and communication. Subcontractors are selected by matching them to the project based on qualifications and costs. They are required to participate in our qualification process as well as our safety and quality control practices. Our team remains diversified in the types of projects in which Sigma participates such as new construction, renovations, and tenant improvements.
Green/Sustainable Building
Sigma has developed expertise in the design, construction, and project management of environmentally sound and energy- conserving buildings. Numerous members of our staff have achieved LEED accreditation and are able to provide our clients with expertise in meeting their sustainability and energy-efficient project goals. Recently, Sigma acted as project manager for a 147,000-square-foot community center that achieved LEED Gold certification. LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) is an internationally recognized green building certification system that provides third-party verification that a building was designed and built using strategies aimed at improving performance across many metrics.
Developed by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), LEED provides building owners and operators a concise framework for identifying and implementing practical and measurable green building design, construction, operations, and maintenance solutions. LEED promotes a whole-building approach to sustainability by recognizing performance in the key areas of human and environmental health: sustainable site development, water efficiency/savings, energy efficiency/savings, materials selection, improved indoor environmental quality and stewardship of resources as well as sensitivity to the impacts of the process.
While not every client desires to achieve LEED certification on their project, we find that most owners are keenly interested in efficiencies that can be achieved by utilizing this type of design and construction utilizing alternative energies and systems. With several LEED accredited staff on board and further designations such as the Sustainable Building Advisor, Sigma is ready to assist in energy efficient and sustainable projects.