Mendel & Company Construction

Nathan Mendel established Mendel & Company Construction (Mendel & Company) in 1997 with the intention of bringing the highest level of professionalism to all of its projects, from smaller office and retail spaces to multimillion dollar ground-up buildings throughout the United States.

Mendel & Company has expanded from its headquarters in Denver to cover the entire state of Colorado, as well as Utah, Idaho, Washington and Wyoming, with projects upcoming in Massachusetts, Illinois, and Arizona. Mendel & Company has completed more than 200 dental offices, hundreds of retail and restaurant locations, warehouse and manufacturing spaces, places of worship, dance studios and more.

Over the last 18 years, Mendel and Company Construction has experienced steady, controlled growth. With attention to detail and personalized attention to every client, Nathan and his team provide outstanding service. Mendel and Company is one of Denver’s most trusted and well-respected names in commercial tenant finish work and small, ground-up construction.

Taking the middle

With 25 employees, Mendel & Company is neither a small or large contractor. The business collaborates with a number of reliable subcontractors to provide turnkey service to a diverse clientele.

“We often compete with smaller companies that are not as established as we are,” Nathan notes. “We can offer a broader range of professional services. On the other hand, the members of our management team come from larger firms and we run jobs as if they were big projects even when they are small.”

Mendel & Company has established a niche in this market sector by providing the capabilities clients expect from larger companies, but with the flexibility and personalized service of a small business.

The company’s relationships with a network of select, qualified strategic partners allow Mendel & Company to tackle more complex work efficiently and with lower overhead. “The only thing we perform in-house is carpentry,” Nathan explains. “Beyond that, we sub out almost everything. For the most part, we serve as construction managers.”

Diverse capabilities

Mendel & Company operates exclusively in the commercial sector. This presented a slight challenge during the recent recession, when restaurants and retailers put expansion plans on hold. “When that business disappeared five years ago, we were fortunate to have a backlog of medical and dental work to sustain us,” explains Nathan.

While the health care market continues to play an important role in the company’s growth, the team has diversified to better serve a broader share of the commercial construction economy.

Recent work includes a liquor store project in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Mendel & Company performed an exterior expansion and interior renovation of the building while it was still occupied.

“Logistically, this was a challenging project,” Nathan elaborates. “This is the single busiest liquor store in Colorado Springs. We tore the entire front of the building off to expand the main entrance and the store never closed. We had to create a temporary entrance off to the side with pedestrian safety in mind. That project started in October 2014 and we worked through rough weather to get it done for the holidays.”

One of Nathan’s personal favorite projects is a themed dental office the crew completed in 2010. “It was a jungle-themed children’s dental office,” he says. “The same company that did the effects for Rainforest Café did all the interior effects at the dental office. The space features trees, vines, murals and other jungle amenities. This project has a high level of finish and the end result is really unique.”

In early 2015, the business is taking on a project for a coffee manufacturing facility in Commerce City, Colorado. Mendel & Company is helping the client convert a general manufacturing space to a manufacturing line for single-serve coffee cups. “We haven’t done a lot of manufacturing type work so this is fun,” Nathan notes.

Lasting partnerships

Relationships are the foundation of success for Mendel & Company. While the business creates and maintains lasting partnerships with clients and strategic partners, Nathan and his crew also prioritize industry involvement.

As a member of the American Subcontractors Association of Colorado, Nathan and his team benefit from networking and educational opportunities provided by the organization. “We have made some great connections through the ASA,” he says. “While in some situations we are competing with other members, we find that there are more opportunities for collaboration between companies than competition between them.”

Nathan takes his involvement a step further with the Construction Industry Networking Group (CING) that he founded in 2009. This organization has partnered with the ASA to provide better opportunities for contractors of all sizes to connect, collaborate and talk shop.

Through the ASA and other partnerships, Nathan and his colleagues have built a strong business. Mendel & Company Construction continues to grow, expanding into new markets with an increasingly diverse set of capabilities.