Fortitude Business Contracting has loved a mean yearly development charge of practically 400 % since its founding in 2019. (Michael Schwartz photograph)
One among Richmond’s fastest-growing native building companies is heading to one of many metropolis’s fastest-growing neighborhoods to arrange store.
Fortitude Business Contracting is making ready to maneuver its headquarters to 3203 Lanvale Ave., which it purchased final month for $1 million.
Fortitude has loved a mean annual development charge of 387 % since its founding in 2019, a charge excessive sufficient to land it close to the highest of BizSense’s RVA25 listing of the fastest-growing personal firms within the area.
Behind Fortitude is married couple Christian and Jessica Reinke, who’ve been operating the corporate out of a rented warehouse close to Staples Mill and East Parham roads in Henrico. With the pending transfer to Lanvale Avenue, the agency is headed only a few blocks from the forthcoming Diamond District redevelopment.
Christian Reinke, heart, accepting Fortitude’s award on the RVA25 occasion. (Stephanie Jenkins photograph)
The Reinkes purchased the 7,000-square-foot constructing from native HVAC firm Woodfin, which had scooped it up final yr in a $7 million deal that included one other 3.5 acres close by. The constructing was most lately assessed at $708,000.
Christian had labored typically contracting for over a decade previous to beginning Fortitude three years in the past, with stints at native gamers like Dominion Building Companions and Emerald Building earlier than transferring over to JLL the place he managed building tasks for property homeowners.
He mentioned as soon as he was on the homeowners’ facet of the trade, he obtained the concept that there was room available in the market for a normal contractor that gives assist past simply constructing out an area.
Christian Reinke
“There’s much more to a undertaking than simply the hard-cost building. You need to work out how a lot area you want, do design growth and schematic drawings,” Reinke mentioned. “There’s an entire listing for a undertaking that I’d by no means been uncovered to.”
He reached out to a couple companies, asking in the event that they’d be focused on increasing their enterprise mannequin to incorporate consulting on issues like electrical work, furnishings choice, cabling and audio-video parts — all the opposite bits and items that go right into a construct.
“Everyone I spoke with mentioned, ‘Eh, we’re probably not , I don’t suppose that will work,’” Reinke mentioned. “And I informed them, ‘Properly, I feel it is going to.’”
He obtained his normal contractor license and launched Fortitude with the thought of providing a extra holistic method to building.
“As a substitute of getting six or seven individuals concerned, (purchasers) have one level of contact. It’s confirmed very efficient,” Reinke mentioned. “I’m not saying we do design providers per se, however we are able to put them into contact with architects who do. We’re merely providing an answer to a tenant who has no thought the place to go or what to do subsequent.”
Fortitude’s work consists of an workplace renovation for tobacco agency Swedish Match within the James Middle downtown and the ongoing Ironwood Automotive relocation on North Hamilton Road.
“We do plenty of tenant upfits. It’s type of our candy spot and I like that sort of stuff,” Reinke mentioned. “However we’re attempting to get into the out-of-the-ground (building) market.”
Fortitude’s new house on Lanvale Avenue might assist with that. Along with workplace area, it additionally has some warehousing area for indicators and different further supplies.
Reinke mentioned he and his employees of 10 hope to be moved in in the course of the first quarter of 2023.
