We recently began work on a project in Mississippi. It’s a $1.3 million contract for a renovation project at Pegasus Ridgeland Place, a Pegasus Senior Living assisted living community with memory care services located in Ridgeland, MS. The renovation represents South Coast Improvement Company’s first project in the state of Mississippi.
That makes 16 states we’ve done work in, with a few new ones coming in Maine and New Hampshire. Sixteen will surely grow into more in 2022.
When South Coast opened our doors back in 1997, the notion of doing work beyond the Mason Dixon line was not on the table. Yet there’s something that happens when you do quality work and are easy to work with, particularly in the assisted living niche. Word gets around.
A few years ago, we landed a very large renovation project in Fort Lauderdale for one of the larger assisted living providers in the country. The project featured a lot of the standard stuff you find in an assisted living renovation— refreshing corridors and common areas, repurposing some rooms, etc. The real noteworthy accomplishment was the reno of an Alzheimer’s unit on one floor and the creation of an additional one on the second floor.
Like I said, in a niche like assisted living, word gets around. It wasn’t long before we landed projects in Georgia and now Mississippi. It also doesn’t hurt that many of the owners of assisted living facilities own properties in multiple states. For example, we recently won a renovation project at another Pegasus Senior Living facility, this one in New York.
What many of our clients have discovered is that once you develop a good working relationship with a general contractor, you want that for all your projects. Some have found it’s better to bring in the GC you’re comfortable with—even if the property is in another state or part of the country—than it is to find another GC and develop a relationship from scratch. Consequently, that’s how a company from the South Coast of Massachusetts has found its way south and now lays claim to working on projects from the Mississippi River east to the Atlantic Ocean.
It took a lot of hard work to make that journey. I’m grateful to the talented people who have worked here and who we have worked with. While the pandemic and the past 20 months have been difficult, it has also taught us to value the people in your life and take nothing for granted.
At South Coast, we count our blessings every day.
