Brock Shrader, President, Wilson & Girgenti – Jacksonville
In an interview with Invest:, Brock Shrader, president of Wilson & Girgenti, discussed the company’s plan to expand in Jacksonville by working there with its Orlando and Tampa clients entering that market. He also talked about the opportunities that the industrial, healthcare, and multifamily real estate sectors offer, and the advantages that Wilson & Girgenti’s sister construction company, WG Build, will bring to its clients.
What have been the key milestones for Wilson & Girgenti in Jacksonville over the past year?
We started our Jacksonville office a couple years ago, and we aim to make a bigger push in that market. Our focus over the past few months has been connecting with our clients in Tampa and Orlando to grow with them in Jacksonville, too, while also connecting with new clients. Our goal is to grow our Jacksonville office to match our Tampa and Orlando offices.
What notable trends or opportunities for growth in the construction sector are you closely monitoring?
We have seen some markets go down, but there has also been an uptick in the industrial sector as a lot of warehouse space is being built out. We have also seen a lot of expansion in health care, particularly in the Jacksonville market. We are following closely with one of our large health care clients from Orlando into Jacksonville. They aim to heavily invest in the Florida market over the next few years, which will also include Jacksonville.
What real estate sectors will be the key drivers of growth for Wilson & Girgenti in the near term?
Mostly industrial and health care. Most of the work in industrial is new construction in a lot of off-sites near cities. That includes the outskirts of Jacksonville where we will see many developers build warehouses. For instance, we do a lot of work for an online retailer that has a lot of warehouse space in Jacksonville. Many developers aim to build more warehouse space for those large online retailers.
We are also doing a lot of work in health care that focuses on tenant upfit as many existing buildings are renovated. Some notable health care companies are also looking to buy smaller doctor offices and build up that clientele in the Jacksonville market. Additionally, multifamily residential has become a significant part of our local business since the pandemic, so we expect that to grow as well.
How would you describe the multifamily residential segment in the markets where Wilson & Girgenti operates?
Multifamily has been a roller coaster. There was a massive increase in multifamily that started in 2020, but we saw that decline as interest rates went up. Developers are wary of investing because of increased rates, but we are seeing more multifamily developments come into play as rates start slowly decreasing. We have been pricing a few of those developments in the Jacksonville area, particularly with the Gateway Jax project coming along. Multifamily is starting to ramp back up to 2021 levels.
What approach does Wilson & Girgenti use in its relationships with clients, and how does it contribute to successful project outcomes?
While we do some advertising, most of the client contact in our industry is face-to-face and word-of-mouth. We focus mainly on meeting with people, understanding what they like, and showing them how we like to do things so that we develop a cohesive relationship. That approach has been the driving force of our growth, and we continue to use it. In the case of Jacksonville, we go to the events of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and Commercial Real Estate Women (CREW) and meet people.
What initiatives has Wilson & Girgenti implemented regarding talent recruitment and retention and workforce development?
Acquiring talent is always a challenge. We like to look at local schools such as UNF, UCF, and USF for our talent and to stay in-tune with what the new engineers want. We have also been listed among the Top 100 Companies to Work for in Florida by Florida Trend, which is a great honor.
We constantly look for new trends and more feedback from our employees to ensure that we are providing them with the culture and value that they are looking for, particularly young engineers coming out of college. We also offer benefits such as 100% paid-for healthcare to individual employees, which not many companies do. We want to ensure that new talent has healthcare so that they are not burdened with those expenses and can focus on other things. Moreover, some of our employees can work in a hybrid manner, which has been successful for them. We also have plenty of co-working space and fun activities, so people want to come to the office.
How does Wilson & Girgenti leverage technology and innovation in its design and consulting engineering services?
The typical software that we use is provided by Autodesk, and that company does a good job of keeping us up to date with the latest technologies. We have also started figuring out ways to adapt AI to our industry. AI is a new technology that is not typically meant for our industry, but we try to stay ahead of the curve by using it in any way we can. We are using it for a lot of code searches, for example.
We have a subscription to UpCodes, which manages all the codes for every state. That company did their pilot AI program using the Microsoft Pilot AI to help with code searches. We have made that available to our engineers so they can do code searches and design better with it. As AI adapts and becomes more useful, we will be able to utilize it better.
What strategies has Wilson & Girgenti implemented to address and navigate challenges within the construction industry?
We are trying to expand our boundaries in terms of where we can do work. Over the past year, we have tried to license our company in every state. Being licensed in more states allows us to better serve our clients in all markets as those clients do work in other parts of the country, too. I myself am licensed in 43 states, and the company is not too far behind. We want to be able to follow clients and their clients into other states. That is a key step to expanding and keeping our company growing.
What is your outlook and what are your top priorities for Wilson & Girgenti over the next two to three years?
We will mainly continue with our expansion in various states. We also developed a sister construction company called WG Build that focuses on building out what Wilson & Girgenti engineers design. Our engineering firm focuses on structural, mechanical, electrical, plumbing and fire protection design, and WG Build provides construction services for those designs.
WG Build has Florida-licensed electricians, mechanical, plumbing, and fire protection contractors, so it can provide better services by removing some of the middlemen. Things in construction projects will often not line up with what is designed. When that happens, there is a long process where subcontractors must let the general contractor, architect, and engineers know about changes. We aim to cut out that middle process entirely by having engineers and subcontractors talk to each other directly. That makes the life of both general contractors and owners easier, and it reduces the actual cost of the construction project. We aim to expand WG Build heavily over the next couple of years both as a service for our clients and to help both the engineering world and the construction world.
