Commercial Concrete

Every commercial concrete bid is really two bids. There's the concrete, which is close to a commodity, and there's the schedule, which isn't. One contractor rebuilds your drive aisle in two mobilizations over nine days. Another subs out the demolition, waits on a curb crew borrowed from another job, and turns the same scope into five weeks of cones in front of your tenants.

We self-perform commercial concrete across the Front Range, which is the short answer to most scheduling questions. The longer answer is below, along with how a scope gets priced per unit, where commercial work departs from residential work sitting on identical clay, and what to ask anyone you invite to bid.

What self-performing does to a calendar

A contractor who subs out concrete has to sequence around somebody else's crew calendar, and that crew is sequencing around three other jobs. Every handoff between a demolition sub, a grading sub, and a placing crew is a dead day on your property and one more chance for the grade to get read wrong.

We run demolition, excavation, base, forming, steel, placement, and finishing with our own people. That matters less for the total hours of work than for the gaps between them. Saw-cutting control joints has to happen the same day as the pour, in a window two hours wide on a hot August afternoon. A crew that owns the whole task is standing there with the saw running.

It settles accountability too. When base fails two winters out, nobody argues about which sub caused it.

A commercial scope gets priced in units, not in one number

Residential work comes as a lump sum. Commercial work should come as units, because units are the only honest way to compare two contractors and the only sane way to handle the change that always arrives once demolition opens up the subgrade.

Flatwork prices per square foot at a stated thickness and mix. Curb and gutter prices per linear foot by section type. Ramps price each, by configuration. Excavation and haul-off price per cubic yard; base prices per ton placed and compacted. Mobilization gets its own line, because a job you split into four phases for tenant access costs four mobilizations rather than one. Hand somebody one figure for a whole lot and they can't tell whether the low price came from a thinner slab, less base, lighter steel, or a plan to write change orders once the lot is torn out.

So ask for the unit sheet. Ask what quantity assumption sits behind each unit.

Same clay, different rules

Questions worth asking every bidder, including us

• Which parts of this scope do your own crews perform, and which get subbed
• What slab thickness, mix design, and reinforcement is actually in your number
• How many mobilizations did you assume, and what triggers another one
• What's the unit price for unsuitable soil that turns up under the demolition
• Who pulls permits, and who schedules and pays for third-party testing
• How do you keep the property open and the accessible routes usable while you work
• What happens to a panel that fails a compaction test or a cylinder break
• Are you licensed, bonded, and insured, and can I see the certificate

Phasing around a property that can't close

Almost none of this work happens on an empty site. A grocery anchor still takes deliveries at five in the morning. A medical office has to keep an accessible route open to its door. An HOA still has residents who need to reach their garages before work.

So the phasing plan is part of the concrete scope, not a courtesy bolted onto it. We break lots into pours that keep drive aisles connected end to end, sequence dumpster enclosures so trash pickup never misses a week, and hold temporary accessible routes with signage while the permanent ones cure. Concrete takes vehicle traffic around seven days and reaches design strength at twenty-eight, and those two dates drive a phasing plan harder than anything else. All of it belongs in the bid.

Which of the six scopes is yours

These pages are grouped by scope rather than by product, because a scope of work is how the problem reaches you. Site flatwork and paving covers lots, drive aisles, and site walks built for delivery weight. Curb, gutter, and ADA covers drainage at the flowline and accessible routes that survive inspection. Foundations and structural covers engineered bearing, hold points, and coordination with steel. Industrial floors and docks covers flatness, joint filling, and approach slabs. HOA and property programs covers multi-year packages phased around residents. Repair and maintenance covers trip hazards, lifting, and sealing. Pick the closest one. If your project spans three, call (303) 569-4046 and we'll sort it into one schedule.