Welcome the fastest growing luxury construction management company in Newport Rhode Island, J2 Construct, Inc. Sean Burke of 42 North Builders and Jeff Lipshires offer 50 tenured years in the residential and commercial industry. They are fulfilling a need in the market place to help projects end on time and fulfilling project goals on budget. I met with the two of them to learn why Architects, Interior Designers and Realtors are referring their clients to J2 Construct, Inc. Stay tuned to watch the bloopers for some behind the scenes comical entertainment. Special Thanks to Paul MacDonald and Lucas Delisle of Aerial Visual for their video, editing and song writing www.j2construct.com
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Welcome to Newport Living and Lifestyles. I’m Christon and I’m here with Sean Burke and Jeffrey Lipshires of J2Construct. So guys, tell us more about what J2Construct is. J2Construction is a building company and a construction management company. I’ve been doing this self-employed for over 30 years. Jeffrey and I teamed up here and we’re excited to begin J2 and offer our service to the public here. Jeff, tell us about your tenure in the industry, I know you have a wealth of knowledge as well. Yes, I’ve been in the industry for about 15 years on the island with one of the larger general contractors that did mostly high-end and commercial work. We tend to run into each other on project sites and around town, we live pretty close to each other. We just started kicking around about a year ago, we thought that we had a similar style that would work well together, and that’s how we started J2.
What kind of features do you guys see in the high-end homes that you guys work on? We tend to see a lot of mill work, a lot of high-end cabinetry, ceiling panel systems, wall panels, high end stonework, and tile. We see tile coming in from China and Italy, and all these really longly products. There’s a lot of coordination with the designers, architects and installers to make sure that the quantity is right, and the take-off is right, and the thickness of the material is matched up with the stone that you’re going to install, and the different types of tiles and details. You think a lot that you’re just doing a tile bathroom, but there are so many factors that come into play today where materials are coming from all over the place and they have to arrive on time. If you don’t order enough, it can shut your whole project down, just because you ran out of tile. There’s an enormous amount of coordination, but there’s a lot of technology and automation that’s involved even with electric heat mat floors, motion sensor lighting so that the home just becomes intuitive space where you’re walking in and lights go on and your comfort has already been predetermined from your iPhone. It comes with its own sets of challenges, but it really makes living in a luxury home that much nicer.
What kind of projects are you working on right now? We’ve got a couple of new construction coastal homes, several renovations, full remodel in Providence, Coastal Home in Watch Hill and Porstmouth, some other renovations in Newport, and some commercial projects that we’re advising on as construction management.
Are there any famous people that you are working with or around that you can mention? Anybody that we’re willing to listen to. Most of our clients, their privacy is paramount and we take that pretty seriously.
You guys have a wealth of knowledge in the industry, so when interior designers, realters, and architects are referring your business, what is it about you that they love so much? I think that the biggest thing that we bring is an open communication style. Today, builders and architects and designers get engaged very early together, and it helps make a better process for the owners and the architects as well. J2 has the ability, because of both of our commercial backgrounds, to be a little more structured than most of our residential competitors. We’re used to critical paths, plan and specifications for every item, cost accounting, so that there’s not just the transparency aspect that Jeff points out, but also that cost recognition and a dialogue so you’re not just measuring time and activity, but also performance and budget and compliance to specifications. And in this business, that trust and confidence that your build with your designer and architect is really critical because you become part of a family for a period of time. And you never really walk away; even though you may finish the project, there are always things that come up down the line; maybe that client, architect or designer has another project for you. We try to build a really strong relationship with our costumers that transcends the project itself.
That’s nice. What price range are you guys really focusing in? Residential renovation projects can be as small as a few thousand dollars for something for an existing client. And on the commercial side, it can be as high as 15-20 million dollars. That’s a good project.
Do you guys have a specific group of people that you choose to work with on your projects? So we have carpenters, laborers and painters that work for us directly, and we have a broad base of subcontractors. Depending on the type of project, we have a select few we would work with maybe on a high-end residential project. And then we have really strong relationships with designers and architects. We share a lot of information and it helps us to pick the right projects to work together on.
I’ve heard a lot about women-centric homes, green homes, solar homes. Do you guys see any upcoming trends here in Newport? I think most of the plans we get today from clients and architects have a little bit of everything. They’ve got energy efficiency, solar, position of homes, not to mention the prescription for their insulation packages are optimized so that a home of today is probably half the operation cost of what they were a decade ago. As building technology gets better every year, we always tell people build the bones of your house really well, and the things on the inside you can change, but you can’t change the bones.
Thank you so much for coming on our show today. How can the people who want to build a new house get in touch with you? Toll free 888-301-0076 or www.j@contstruct.com. We look forward to seeing you on Newport Living & Lifestyles.