Expanded Coverage
ACPS Contracting diversifies, adds services from siding to carpentry
When ACPS Contracting (ACPS) launched in 2008, the company started as ACPS Painting with a focus on painting multifamily residential projects. Over the years, the company added services and started working on larger projects. That’s when they made the strategic decision to expand their services.
“All of our new commercial services are trades we’ve worked in previously,” says ACPS Contracting President Arieh Katz. “We determined that we could broaden our revenue streams, and we already had the expertise. My business partner, Wassim Omran, has an engineering background, and I have the business background. Diversifying our service lines just makes sense.”
The company serves Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C., with specialized services including installation of exterior metal panels, exterior installation and finish systems (EIFS) and siding work. In addition to painting and coating, they do electrostatic painting, waterproofing with caulking/sealants, pressure washing, texture coating, concrete work, carpentry and traffic coatings and striping.
Katz says the decision to expand was cemented after working on the 414 Light Street luxury apartments project in Baltimore. “It was a great project, but we had issues with mitigating the constant damage to our finished surfaces, and we saw that we could do more parts of projects and make that a value-add for our clients, as well.”
At 414 Light Street, a 44-story tower near the Inner Harbor, ACPS performed elastomeric coatings on the exterior of the north and south elevations. The process creates a surface designed to function as a weather barrier and to add strength and physical malleability to withstand high winds, Katz says.
ACPS applied texture coatings, painting and concrete sealers on the interior of the parking garage. The firm also installed Scuffmaster metallic coatings on all the elevators and doorframes to protect them from wear and tear.
“We also installed wall coverings that included digital print wall coverings and a finished Venetian plaster. It is an expensive and labor-intensive process, but the entire building looks luxurious, with unique finishes inside-and-out,” Katz explains.
Building Business
“We are extremely proud of each project we do. We are careful to meet budgets and timelines because we know how important they are. We average between 30 to 50 employees and subcontractors,” Katz says. “One of our really large projects was completed at the end of 2016 for the MGM National Harbor in Oxon Hill, Maryland. It was probably one of our most financially aggressive. It’s always challenging when a project is on a very accelerated schedule because we have to manage and staff the project looking at the materials used and labor being expended. Coordinating that with other trades is almost a controlled chaos.”
The project had a tight deadline to meet for its opening, so ACPS had teams working around the clock at times with some double shifts, overnight work and weekends. Katz says it was an aggressive schedule, but ACPS performed successfully.
“We performed the painting and wall coverings in the hotel tower and convention center, including a beautiful and highly recognizable digital print wall covering of cherry blossoms. We also did the traffic markings in the entire parking garage, as well as installation of flexible delineator posts within the garage,” he says. “The tower project was more than 100,000 square feet and at least 2 million square feet in the parking garage.”
Other recent projects include EIFS for Trexlertown Cinema in Allentown, Pennsylvania, as well as EIFS, wall coverings and siding for Home2 Suites by Hilton Silver Spring in Silver Spring, Maryland. The firm also installed Artisan-brand cementitious siding for The Nexus, formerly known as The Gateway Alexandria, mixed-use project in Alexandria, Virginia.
This year, ACPS has been working on two separate senior living centers, one in Ashburn, Virginia, and the other in Bethesda, Maryland. Both feature installation of double lap vinyl siding and vinyl shake siding. The double lap vinyl siding improves tear resistance under high wind loads, and shake siding has the appearance of real wood without the drawbacks of wood, such as susceptibility to damage and lack of insulation.
The company also performs ongoing project work for management firms to provide maintenance painting on both commercial properties and multifamily structures. “We can maintain the property from both a carpentry and painting perspective,” Katz says.
Clear Communication
From a client perspective, Katz says that ACPS excels at communication, building trust and transparency.
“These are the three tenets that are most important to us, especially in our interactions with our clients,” Katz says. “When those three things work well, it helps create a good client relationship. So, if we have an issue on a project, whether minor or major, we can overcome any obstacle and make sure all parties involved are satisfied with the outcome.”
For employees, communication is also critical. It plays a significant role in building respect and ensuring safety, he adds.
“We value their work effort and time, and we like to give them as much space as they need with life and the things that come up. But even more important than that is their safety. We do push our guys to meet deadlines and certain productivity levels, but we don’t want them to sacrifice safety to do it,” Katz says. “We know you can’t do anything while injured, so it is critical to determine all of a project’s parameters and have a safety plan in place to make sure they are following safety standards.”
Katz’s goal is to expand the company to another geographic region within the next one to two years. Within the next five years, he anticipates a third region could be added to the firm’s service areas.
“If we can continue to trend upward, that’s the goal. Support staff may need to be expanded, too, as we handle larger projects in 2020,” he adds. “Projects this year include some apartment unit renovation projects in Arlington and some homeowner association and multifamily property repeat renovation work, as well.”
Katz would like to add more projects working directly for commercial and multifamily property owners. “In my perfect world, I’d like at least 30% to 40% of our projects to be for the direct owner or property agency.” he explains.
As the company grows, Katz says that he’d like to also expand the company’s volunteer efforts. As the husband of a first-grade teacher, he sees the needs of area schools and works to support the Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland in a variety of ways, from volunteering to donating to events.
“I’m looking forward to doing more of that because it is important for our futures,” he says. With the current and ongoing crisis facing our nation and world, ACPS Contracting stepped up and donates to the families of a local elementary school that was closed during the current pandemic. “Being a part of our community and making a difference in more than just the lives of those working with us matters,” Katz says.