GC or construction manager: which one should run your job

On our jobs the same principal walks the site whether the contract calls us the general contractor or the construction manager. The work in the field looks identical. What changes is the paper behind it: who signs the trade contracts, who absorbs a cost overrun, and how the owner sees the numbers. Owners ask us to explain the difference often enough that we keep the explanation short and tie it to the two things that matter most, risk and visibility.

When we are the general contractor

Under a general contract we give you a price for the finished building, we hire and pay every trade, and we hand over the keys for that price outside of owner-directed changes and true unknowns. If our drywall crew takes longer than we planned, that is our cost. If a subcontractor we hired misses a date, we pay for the recovery. You get one contract, one number and one party responsible for the opening date. Our in-house crews make this structure work well for us, because the trades that usually decide the finish date are ours to control rather than someone else's to promise.

When we are the construction manager

Under a construction management arrangement we run the job for you, but the trade contracts sit with you or are held on your behalf on an open-book basis. We bid the packages, recommend awards, sequence the work, manage the site and report the cost of every trade as it is actually spent. Our fee is stated separately. You see every subcontract and every invoice. The cost risk of the trades sits closer to you, and in exchange you get more say over who gets hired and complete visibility into where the money goes. There is a hybrid version, construction management at risk, where we commit to a guaranteed maximum price once the design reaches a certain point. That shifts risk back toward us while keeping the books open.

The question underneath both labels

Ask yourself who you want holding the trade contracts and how much you want to see. An owner with one building to open and no interest in reading subcontract bids usually wants a general contractor and a fixed number. A developer with several projects, a preferred mechanical contractor, or a lender that wants an open book usually wants a construction manager. Neither answer is wrong, and the label on the proposal matters less than the four clauses that define it: who signs the trades, who pays for an overrun, how a change gets approved, and what happens to leftover contingency at the end.

What does not change on our jobs

Whichever way the contract reads, a principal of the company is on your site, answers your call and walks the punch list with you. The estimate is built by the person who will run the work. The schedule is built backward from the opening date, whether that is a hotel bringing rooms back online, a store's grand opening or a tenant's move-in. The reporting comes from the person on the ground, not a layer removed from it. We have run both structures across Texas metros, from ground-up retail to hotel renovations to interior build-outs, and the field behavior is the same in each.

How to decide before the proposal

Bring us the drawings you have and tell us how you plan to finance the job and how involved you want to be in trade selection. If you have a lender, ask what reporting format it needs. Those two facts usually settle the question in one conversation. If they do not, we will lay out both versions of the contract side by side with the risk and the fee spelled out so you can pick with your eyes open.

Whether the paper says general contractor or construction manager, the owner of this company is standing on your slab. Send us the plans and the financing picture and we will tell you which structure gets your building open on the date.