Wales McLelland Construction says attention to detail is what sets its work apart and defines its client-centered approach.

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Principal Doug Scott says Wales McLelland Construction has been mostly impervious to market conditions for more than a decade. He credits customer service and professionalism, as well as WMC’s focus on the industrial and commercial sectors.

“We’ve had steady growth since 1994, and we’ve increased our volume 20-fold since then,” Scott says. “We’ve had steady growth through slow and good times, which I attribute to the service we provide as well as the markets we’re in. We don’t do any residential, which is very volatile, so we’ve avoided some of those ups and downs.”

Stan Wales and Brian McLelland founded WMC in 1971 to focus on industrial and commercial projects throughout British Columbia’s lower mainland. Scott joined the company in 1990 as a senior project manager and has been the owner and operator of the firm since 1994.

Today, WMC operates in southern British Columbia and Vancouver Island, which is just off the British Columbia coast.

The company still specializes in industrial and commercial construction, and 60 percent of its volume is design/build or turnkey projects.

To accommodate its ongoing growth, WMC relocated to a larger office space in Burnaby, British Columbia, about 18 months ago. The company has 35 office personnel and 45 hourly tradesmen.

“We employ our own crews of qualified framing, forming and concrete journeymen tradesmen,” WMC says. “Our experienced, full-time superintendents ensure that our work and that of our select specialty subcontractors is always executed to the highest industry standard.

“This allows for complete quality control of the fundamental construction components.

“Close attention to detail is what consistently sets a WMC building apart and defines our client-centered approach to doing business.”

WMC also boasts more than 200 years of combined construction experience through its senior management team, which includes Director Sonny Wong, Manager of Operations Jim Skirda and Office Manager Gail McEwen. “With Wales McLelland, there are no surprises,” the company says. 

“Clients are attended to by the same Wales McLelland representative throughout the duration of the project to ensure consistent, value-added and personalized service,” it adds.

Utilizing Technology
WMC also uses a variety of construction systems and designs, and the company says it has gained a reputation as an expert in these technologies. It lists AutoCAD and computerized estimating and scheduling systems as applications it uses to maintain efficiency, dependability and flexibility on its projects.

“From the top down, our management and supervisory staff are dedicated to doing whatever it takes to ensure our clients’ interests come first,” WMC says. “Maintaining the balance of quality workmanship and exacting project management enables us to create top-quality facilities while controlling budgets and minimizing timelines through fast-track construction.”

Combating Costs
The biggest recent change Scott says he has seen in the market is the escalation of commodity costs, including labor and materials. “We’ve seen a dramatic increase over the last three years and it is continuing to rise,” he adds.

WMC is making numerous attempts to better handle these rising costs. For instance, the company is forming partnerships with its clients earlier in the preplanning stage to mitigate potential future cost increases for materials.

It is getting orders to vendors during preconstruction, finalizing designs earlier and facilitating the entire construction process.

WMC has hired its first vice president of development to assist with response time to project bids. Tony Vigini has been part of the WMC staff since January 2008, and his duties include facilitating the marketing of the firm with its past, present and future clients. Improving and maintaining its lines of communication with its clients and the market in general allows the company to be more pro-active rather than reactive.

“Historically, contractors in general are poor at marketing and servicing their customers,” Scott says. “[Good marketing] is something I take pride in, and we’re adding more depth to our company so we can improve on that.”

On the Fast Track
WMC was the general contractor for an IKEA retail and warehouse location in Coquitlam, British Columbia, that had its share of construction challenges. Not only was the 750,000-square-foot project set on a 10-month schedule, but WMC had to deal with poor soil conditions before laying the foundation, as well.

Also, as with all new IKEA locations, the project had a higher profile than most projects WMC handles on a regular basis. WMC says the $30 million (Canadan) project is IKEA’s largest in Canada, its third largest in North America and sixth largest in the world. “Most of our work is in industrial and commercial infrastructure, and this IKEA store is right alongside a major highway,” Scott says.

The 15-acre site was set on old swampland three feet below the water table. Five feet of wood waste, 39 feet of peat moss and natural methane gas production was found on the site.

To create a stable foundation, WMC says it excavated the site materials, groundwater was held in check with pumps, granular fills with river sand were installed and the owner installed 1,100 concrete-filled steel pipe piles averaging 110-feet deep.

The company also constructed landscape berms using numerous truckloads of floating Styrofoam to prevent sinking. The Styrofoam blocks are much lighter than dirt fill so less likely to settle over time. “This proved to the market we had the expertise to successfully execute larger and more sophisticated facilities,” Scott says of the overall project.

401 Industrial Avenue
WMC was also the general contractor for 401 Industrial Avenue, which is a multi-tenant industrial, retail and office structure in downtown Vancouver. The structure is comprised of 11 unit modules that measure 2,244 square feet, a 1,600-square-foot main level and a 641-square-foot mezzanine on a 29,000-square-foot site.

Features of the project include:

• 20-foot clear height to underside of roof structure
• Electrical service 100A 3-phase
• Gas service
• On unit heater per unit
• Grade-level front-loading door
• Skylights
• Two parking spaces per unit on site
• Energy efficient design