Once he identifies a reliable tradesperson, Lou tends to stick with them, so long as their pricing remains reasonable and transparent. He says many of those relationships go back 10-to-15 years, and that a lot of his previous relationships only ended due to retirement. “Loyalty is important,” he says. “I’m loyal to my trades and they’re loyal to me. I think that’s a big part of why I’ve been so successful for so long.” Recently, Gorman-Mazzon Limited concluded a clubhouse for a golf course in Pickering, which has long been in the works. Before Lou was brought on board, the design of that building went through a few different iterations, a different contractor was originally hired, and the budget ended up being really off. Lou worked with the architect and re-drew the building, and ultimately “it worked out very well,” from both a quality and price perspective. “It looks great,” Lou reports. “It’s a far cry from what they had before. It looks nice, it has everything they need, and it came in on more or less on budget. The owners were very happy.” Moving forward, Lou is open to doing more commercial projects of that size and scope, but his true passion is residential building. He says custom homes are more difficult than commercial projects, but he welcomes that challenge. “They’re harder because the client cares more,” he explains. “The project is more personal to them. It’s their home. It’s where they live. They care THE CONSTRUCTION SOURCE CANADA
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTYzNTg=