Working Hard to Meet Clients' Needs

Keeping clients happy by providing superior customer service is the way The Monahan Company of Eastpointe does business. Founded in 1922 by Edward V. Monahan, it’s a family business that started by building custom homes, getting into commercial work after World War II. “The business was run after he retired by his four sons and now it’s operated by their seven sons,” President Michael J. Monahan explained. “Historically we’ve negotiated much of our work rather than competitively bidding it,” Monahan noted. “Because of that, we seem to fall into different market segments at different times.” The first such segment was church building, which involved doing more than 100 projects for the Archdiocese of Detroit. In the early 1970s, the company made a transition into healthcare work, and eventually worked for every major healthcare system in southeast Michigan.

The Company Today

Healthcare work continues, but it has not been The Monahan Company’s primary business for about five years. “We’re in many different markets now, but we seem to be doing a lot of auto dealerships,” Monahan said. “Most of our projects are built for people who only need one building every 10 or 15 years. It’s unique in the sense that you don’t have a lot of continuing flow of work. “We have a good mix of work now in many different market segments, which is satisfying and positive for the business,” he continued. “We also have a real estate development affiliated company, so we provide a full range of services from site selection to property management. That’s been important to us over the years. We also are back to doing some custom residential work as well. Typically these are big additions or renovations to big homes. We do more renovation work than new site construction.” The company has 25 employees. “We sub out almost all of our work,” Monahan said. “We hire only incidental labor. It’s much easier to specialize and concentrate on managing the project rather than the personnel.” In addition to Michael J., who enjoyed a successful term as AGC Greater Detroit Chapter president in 1995, the other Monahans in the firm are Michael P., who is controller, and W. Dan, John, Joe, Kevin and D.J., who are project managers.

Personal Service the Key

“We’ve always provided very personal service,” Monahan said. “We call ourselves ‘relationship builders.’ It doesn’t matter what we build but rather whom we build it for. We’re capable of building almost anything. If we build it for the right person, we have a very successful project. In doing residential renovations, it comes back to the same type of customer. They need personal service, personal attention, and that’s what we try to give them. What makes our company unique is that a family member, who is a company owner, is personally involved in every project.”

Notable Past Projects

What The Monahan Company has built in the past shows its diversity. For example, the company renovated the eight-story, Kelly Services building, the world headquarters for this well known temporary services firm. The job was a challenge because it was renovated floor by floor while Kelly continued its operations.“We totally rebuilt the lobby of the building while people were passing through it,” Monahan explained. “We were up against a tight schedule for an owner with high expectations while dealing with noise and dust control issues. We worked on numerous projects at the site for four different architects.”The Monahan Company built a new building for Credit Union One. It houses the headquarters for the largest credit union in Michigan, which is one of the largest in the U.S. The 80,000 sq. ft., five-story building features an attractive branch office downstairs, with the administrative offices on the upper floors. It also houses a 180-car parking garage.“The new building was an attempt by Credit Union One to increase their visibility,” said Monahan. “They were a major business, and they wanted to create this significant headquarters to enhance their image.” The site was very confined, with the credit union operating in two smaller buildings on the same site during construction. When the new building was finished, one of the older buildings was demolished.The construction of Our Lady Star of the Sea Catholic Church marked a return to The Monahan Company’s church building heritage, something they found enjoyable. “The site is a place where we had built schools in the 1950s and 1960s,” Monahan said. “This building was built in the late 1990s, and we hadn’t built a Catholic church since the early ’70s. Since then, it’s kicked off a number of other projects from the Archdiocese of Detroit and other denominations as well, including Grace Community Church, Fort Street Presbyterian, New Saint Mark’s Baptist Church and First Congregational Church.“Star of the Sea was on a very confined site,” he continued. “They had a fully operating church and schools there while we were working. This was built in a tiny corner of the site. Building this new church had personal significance to us.”A $12 million outpatient facility was built for Mercy Health Center, a major hospital system in the Midwest. “It’s a major client of ours where we’ve done probably a dozen different projects,” Monahan said. “This was an offsite location. They hired us right at the beginning. We provided consulting services through our real estate division during the site selection process. They had major wetlands problems on the site. We provided a full range of services all the way through the project, from site selection to building completion. It allowed us to help our client who had limited expertise in these matters. It was interesting and challenging for us, too.”

More Under Way Now

The projects The Monahan Company is building now also reflect its broad interests and abilities. One is the $7 million renovation of the Penske Company corporate headquarters. The building houses 60,000 sq. ft. of office space and two stories of parking for this auto racing company.“The building is really spectacular,” Monahan noted. “It’s very specifically built to their continually changing requirements. We’re doing multiple projects for Penske now. Our guys have done a tremendous job of satisfying a visionary client.” Monahan said they’ve enjoyed having the opportunity to work for a client who places extreme importance on quality and who has the financial resources to support those values.Historic preservation is the keynote of the work done on the six-unit John R. Row House. “In Detroit in the 1800s, there was an area called Brush Park that was filled with magnificent homes,” Monahan said. By the 1970s, they had fallen into disrepair. The city was interested in restoring them, although little of their former glory remained.“This building was burned out and rotted,” Monahan said. “There was virtually nothing left. A local developer called Crosswinds Communities is building new townhouses in the area. As part of their agreement with the city, they agreed to renovate some of the existing properties. They’re very good at building new product, but they didn’t want to touch this old building, so they hired us to do it.“We successfully renovated the entire structure of each of the units and rebuilt them,” he continued. “They’re now fourstory row houses and they’ve sold over half of them. It’s a real tribute to our people on the project, Kevin Monahan and Tom Prister. They were able to remove what was left of the structure and replace it floor by floor without collapsing the buildings. We have the exterior facade of the structure, which is historic, and the inside is modern. It’s marvelous to be able to save something like that.”Gilda’s Club is a non-profit organization named for late comedienne and Detroit native Gilda Radner, best known for her work on NBC’s “Saturday Night Live.” The club provides support for cancer patients and their families. It is based in a very old home in a suburb of Detroit, and The Monahan Company is expanding and renovating the structure. The job is a challenge because of the need to tie into an existing building and do the work on a small site. Because the structure was not originally built for commercial use, “We are being required to make quite a few adaptations to the existing building to bring it up to code,” Monahan explained.The Monahan Company looks forward to whatever projects the future brings. “Every project is challenging,” Monahan noted. “They have so many components and everything is unique. All the separate components have to fall into place or you haven’t got a building. It’s not like making cars where you do the same thing over and over.”