 |
|
Quattrone & Associates Inc. Vice President Fred
Drovdlic, left, and President Al Quattrone held an
open house Friday for the new building they moved
into about two months ago. The civil engineering
firm, which previously rented space on Metro
Parkway, now has its own building on Veronica
Shoemaker Boulevard. Although traffic is lighter in
the new location, visibility is greater. (Stephen
Hayford/news-press.com) |
Quattrone & Associates is not just holding its own during
this time of economic turmoil, but it's on the verge of
further growth.
The Fort Myers-based civil engineering firm has managed to
stay busy, despite the flagging construction industry, and
recently moved into a new building it erected on Veronica
Shoemaker Boulevard. The company is also poised to expand
its menu of services in hopes of attracting even more
customers.
A diverse client base, numerous referrals from satisfied
customers and ramped up marketing over the past six months
are the chief reasons for the company's solid performance,
according to its founder and President Al Quattrone.
The company specializes in civil design, landscape
architecture and planning for commercial, residential,
industrial and some public-sector projects in Lee, Collier,
Charlotte and Hendry counties. The company handles about 100
jobs a year, ranging from 2-to-3-acre projects for local
developers, to 200-to-300-acre residential and commercial
projects.
One important sign of its success is its move last week to
the 5,200-square-foot office building near Colonial
Boulevard.
Quattrone & Associates' first eight years of existence were
spent in an 1,100-square-foot, rented space on Metro
Parkway.
"It's definitely satisfying," Quattrone said of the move.
"One of my goals since I started the company was to have my
own building and be able to grow the company."
Why expand now?
"Our company is still doing fairly well," with revenues off
by about 10 percent, compared to last year at this time, he
said. Last year's revenues were $1.9 million. "We're still
getting work and we still have a good team of employees that
needed a little bit bigger and more efficient workspace. And
we have an optimistic and aggressive approach toward
sustaining the company."
The additional space will allow Quattrone to follow through
on a long-held wish to expand in both offerings and
employees. His
five-year goal is to increase his staff from 14 to 25. He
intends to add forensic engineering - investigating the
cause of fires and structural building damage - to his menu
of services within a few months. That new employee will join
two others, a landscape architect and a computer-aided
design technician, who've joined the firm over the last 18
months.
Quattrone & Associates has been the civil engineer for the
city of Fort Myers Housing Authority's Hope VI project,
which is redeveloping public housing, starting with the
Michigan Court community on Michigan Avenue. It's also
engineering the Authority's new administration building,
located at the former Michigan Court site.
"From our perspective, they're a wonderful engineering
firm," said Marcia Davis, the Authority's Hope VI
Coordinator. "They are a small firm and have been very
responsive to our needs."
The authority will temporarily rent space in the company's
new building until its new administration building is
completed.
Davis also lauded Quattrone for volunteering his services to
design a new center for the Boys & Girls Clubs of Lee County
that's planned for east Fort Myers. She is the
organization's president.
Residential projects comprised about half of Quattrone &
Associates' workload during the building boom, but it began
to return to its original focus, commercial and industrial
work, when signs of the boom's demise began to appear about
18 months ago.
"It's worked out," said company Vice President Fred
Drovdlic. "We've been able to increase that end of the
business while the market is down, with building and
development orders."
GCM Contracting in Fort Myers has used Quattrone &
Associates for securing development orders, master site plan
work and drainage plans, according to GCM President Robert
Brown.
"I think they have a reasonable price and good service," he
said. "I think that's what everyone's looking for. And
they're very responsive."
