From building some of the latest multi-family homes in Scott’s Addition, such as The Ella and The Scout, to developing more affordable housing options and even renovating a site at the gate of the Diamond District, Breeden Construction has certainly been busy elevating our region. While Breeden Construction’s parent company, The Breeden Company, has been around for over 60 years, Breeden Construction was formed in 2001, and Brian Revere has been operating the construction side of the company for the past 20 years. We sat down with Brian Revere, President of Breeden Construction, to learn more about his role in the community and the latest development happening here in Richmond.
Brian says Breeden Construction’s biggest focus is on multi-family construction. However, that hasn’t stopped the company from embarking on other innovative projects. "We have done commercial shopping centers, and one of the projects I am most proud of is our completion of iFly Virginia Beach, an indoor skydiving facility. If we can take on that challenge, we know we can do a lot of things.” When Brian first started at Breeden 19 years ago, there were only six people on the construction side. Today, there are 110 employees. “We were only building for our own projects, and at the time, we were only building partial projects using third-party general contractors to help. So, step one was to get to the point where we could build all our own projects in-house, without relying on a third-party contractor. What 2008 to 2010 taught me was that I was fortunate to be with a strong company. The strong companies can grow through the down times, and I wanted to be able to control our own destiny with the construction company. While it’s great that I am supplied projects to build by our deals, I want to be guaranteed to have work even if we aren’t securing deals. In order to make our company stronger, I had to help assure employees that we don’t have gaps and can build on our own,” says Brian.
When asked about what differentiates Breeden Construction from the rest, Brian mentioned “Because we still build from where our roots are based—building for internal demands—we are a long-term holder as a development company and an investor in our real estate. We are not merchant builders. We do not flip deals. In fact, we have never sold a project we built from the ground up. In doing that, we tend to look at the long-term maintenance quality standards. Because we have a development background, our development team and our building team cross over and work with each other a lot. We tend to look at a project as if it’s our own and if it will be a long-term hold. So, we try to look out for clients in that way. Additionally, because we are used to working on projects in the very early stages, we can get involved with clients before they ever have full plans. We prefer to get involved with clients at the inception stage to help work with their design teams and help manage expectations throughout the whole process.
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