As with any successful project, preparation is key. In construction, it begins long before a single beam is placed. STO Building Group’s Greg Dunkle meets with construction leaders James Mezzadri, Troy Addis, and Kurt Thomas to discuss their approaches to preconstruction and how operational alignment
leads to stronger, more predictable project outcomes.
COO
STO Building Group
Estimating Manager Structure Tone
Senior Vice President
LF Driscoll
VP Business Development
Layton Construction
Greg Dunkle (GD): What is the precon phase like for the types of projects you support?
James Mezzadri (JM): In New York, where most projects are interiors, the priority is speed-to-market. Preconstruction is about resolving everything early so that once we’re on-site, there are no hiccups. We also act as advisors, helping clients understand what their design may be worth in the market and how to maximize value within the given budget.
Troy Addis (TA): We’re often brought in at very early stages—sometimes when the idea is just a napkin sketch. That early involvement gives us a clear understanding of a project’s goals and vision. From there, we build a team early, including field operations, VDC, and scheduling, so everyone is aligned from the start, regardless of project size.
Kurt Thomas (KT): In sectors like healthcare and industrial, we’re seeing clients place more value on early engagement. Healthcare owners, especially, are very sophisticated and bring us in early to guide the process. Now, industrial and cold storage clients across the country are recognizing that same value—seeing preconstruction as a critical step in delivering better outcomes.
GD: James, what challenges do you face in interiors preconstruction?
JM: It often comes down to identifying the elements that could dictate the overall schedule. Instead of letting those control the timeline, we isolate and tackle them separately. This applies to projects of any size where the bulk of the work will peak at the same time. The goal is to flatten that curve by breaking the job into pieces, pulling work forward, and running focused teams on separate workstreams. On one project, an internal staircase needed 40 weeks, but the overall job had to finish in 26—so we pulled it out and brought in specialty trade partners to handle design, detailing, fabrication, and installation independently. That alone took significant pressure off the high point of the job.
GD: Kurt, how about in industrial projects?
KT: Our approach adapts to each project, whether it’s multifamily with a long front-end preconstruction process or fastpaced industrial jobs. For example, we were handed a 200,000sf industrial building that seemed straightforward, but our early review identified inefficiencies—like unnecessary underground water storage and overly tall parapets.
By proactively working with the owner’s team and suggesting design improvements, we turned it into a value engineering effort that saved millions of dollars in just a few weeks. The key is critically reviewing plans, thinking ahead, and presenting solutions in a way clients can act on—adding measurable value no matter the project type.
GD: What is a high-value precon activity or process for the sectors you primarily work with?
KT: For cold storage, the high value activity is having an intricate understanding of how the refrigeration systems integrate. This knowledge
is critical to ensuring the project runs efficiently and reliably, and meets the client’s operational needs.
JM: For interiors, the high-value activity is speed to market. It’s about moving a tenant in as quickly and smoothly as possible—from the date we’re onboarded through first day of business. This includes coordinating systems, ensuring move-in readiness, and supporting the burn-in period of their operations. Often, how efficiently we execute this process determines whether we’re awarded the project.
TA: For healthcare, particularly sophisticated renovation projects, infection control risk assessment (or ICRA) is critical. Keeping patients safe while work is happening in an active facility requires careful planning and ensuring everyone understands and follows the protocols. This is especially important in sensitive areas, such as children’s hospitals or delicate clinical spaces.
GD: What role does technology play?
KT: Tools like Join help clients understand how decisions impact cost and schedule in real time, which improves transparency and decision-making.
TA: The nice thing about Join is that it allows for real-time collaboration, better visualization, and more informed planning across the team. We also use several platforms to support VDC and logistics planning, including tools for 4D scheduling. For pull planning, we rely on Touchplan, which is especially popular among superintendents for its clear, day-to-day schedule updates.
JM: In dense markets like New York, technology is critical. Advanced modeling helps us plan complex logistics quickly; things that used to take weeks can now be done in days, helping us meet tighter schedules.
GD: What would you like to see within the next decade in the preconstruction world?
TA: We believe strongly in Integrated Project Delivery and expect it to expand across all sectors, which means broadening training so teams can operate effectively in that environment. We’re also advancing our use of BIM and 3D modeling for cost estimating and scheduling, and moving toward a unified estimating platform across business units—improving visibility into costs nationwide and making better use of historical data.
JM: Our goal is to consistently deliver on what we promise. The volume of work we execute in New York gives us access to a significant amount of data: schedules, cost per square foot, detailed breakdowns, and lessons learned from projects that faced challenges. We’re focused on using that data to identify patterns so we can flag concerns early and engage owners and design teams before issues develop. We’re also refining how we analyze cost and schedule data across space types, and there’s a real opportunity to use that breadth of data to drive smarter decision-making going forward.
KT: Ten years ago, preconstruction was largely reactive. Today, driven by IPD and delivery methods like design-build and design-assist, it’s far more proactive and collaborative—and that will only continue. Technology will continue to play a major role, but I don’t see technology replacing the human element. AI can generate quantities, but experience and judgment are still needed to interpret the data, understanding manpower, safety, and project context. The opportunity lies in how we integrate these tools into our workflows. We need to embrace emerging technologies and be willing to operate on the leading edge—even when it’s uncomfortable. That’s where real progress happens.
