Chesterfield general contracting firm has proven track record

Bob Williams had a time-sensitive construction project that needed to be built at a South Carolina shopping center 10 years ago.

Williams hired EDC, the Chesterfield County-based general contracting and development management firm that specializes in retail and office construction, to handle the job.

"They knocked that job off so fast. It was amazing," said Williams, the Southeast senior construction manager at Edens & Avant, the Columbia, S.C.-based owner and operator of shopping centers in 14 states, including Virginia.

"They did a great job," Williams said. "In this business, you see so many people that will let you down the last few miles of the race, but EDC is different. They have never failed to deliver."

Hiring EDC for that job was the start of a long association for EDC with Edens & Avant. EDC has handled five or six projects since then for Edens & Avant.

Tom Eilerson, who had worked for the developer of the Boulders office park, founded EDC in 1990.

"We started out as an interior contractor," said EDC President Chris Johnson, who joined the company in March 1992.

The company's steady growth began in late 1992 when EDC was hired as construction manager for the renovation of the JANAF Shopping Center in Virginia Beach.

During that process, OfficeMax hired EDC to retrofit its store in that center.

"OfficeMax was a young company at that time and expanding rapidly," Johnson said.

OfficeMax, which bought the Virginia Beach-based Office Warehouse chain in 1992, was so pleased with EDC's work that the company asked the contractor to convert the 40-plus other Office Warehouse locations in 12 states to OfficeMax stores.

OfficeMax later hired EDC to convert the BizMart stores across the country that it had bought in 1993.

"They looked to us to reformat those stores throughout the United States," Johnson said. "That is how we got our start as a traveling retail contractor."

EDC built its first out-of-ground project after 1994.

"We were very cautious about moving to out-of-ground work," Johnson said. "We started slowly with smaller buildings. We grew into larger freestanding buildings and finally to regional power centers."

Early clients included Blockbuster, AutoZone, Bed Bath & Beyond, Michaels Stores and Best Buy.

"At that point, because we had such a great résumé of different stores, developers started seeking us out to help with the construction of centers they were developing," Johnson said.

EDC recently landed appliance and electronics retailer hhgregg as a client, renovating stores for the chain in Mississippi and in former Circuit City locations near Short Pump Town Center and Chesterfield Towne Center. EDC hopes to build and renovate other stores for hhgregg as the chain expands into the mid-Atlantic, including a third location in the Richmond area.

Most of EDC's projects, everything from shopping centers to freestanding buildings, were in states east of the Mississippi River, from mid-Florida to Maine. In 2007, when the company recognized the economy was starting to show signs of distress, it broadened its scope once again.

"We needed to spread our wings again," Johnson said.

The company is looking for projects outside its core mid-Atlantic market.

Another way to adapt is adding a niche market that focuses on alternative energy projects. It is building two solar fields that will supplement the power supply and help reduce operating costs for the Maryland public school system.

"We knew that our niche in retail was going to falter to some degree, so we looked for other opportunities," Johnson said. "What we bring to the table is our ability to operate in a much larger geographic region than other alternative energy contractors."

During the past five years, EDC's gross revenue has grown on average 20 percent each year. Since its founding, the number of employees has gone from four to 50.

The company's largest project to date is Westchester Commons at state Route 288 and Midlothian Turnpike in western Chesterfield. Construction began in 2008, and the first stores opened in March. EDC built the majority of the buildings there.

Alan Bellis, senior project manager for developer Zaremba Group in Cleveland, said his company hired EDC for its Westchester Commons project because of its track record.

"They knew what retailers expect. Having a contractor that knows how to deal with that is a plus," he said. "They had high-quality standards. It was a good experience."