Hospitality
Hotels and boutique properties, where the finish work is the first impression and the guest experience is the deliverable.
Restaurants
Assembly-occupancy buildouts with their own code path: Type I hoods and makeup air, grease interceptors, and health department review running parallel to the building permit, all against an opening date that is usually tied to a lease.
Retail
Ground-up builds and buildouts designed around how customers actually move through a space.
Assembly and Event Spaces
Large spans, heavy occupant loads, and dates that do not move: venues, gathering spaces, and community facilities.
Adaptive Reuse
Taking a building designed for one purpose and making it work for another. The construction is often the easy part. The occupancy change is what drives the code path, and it is worth understanding before you buy the building.
Historic Preservation
Restoration work where what you are not allowed to alter matters as much as what you are building. We work within preservation standards and alongside the review bodies that enforce them.
Tenant Improvements
Clean buildouts that keep landlords and tenants on the same page.
Principles That Keep Us Moving Forward
A Contractor Who Came Up in the Trades
John Hochstetler spent years in the trades: framing, roofing, finish carpentry, before managing projects. That background is why we can walk a site and tell whether the work is right, not just what the schedule says.
Licensed Across the Full Range
Tennessee license BC 73150, the state’s broadest building classification, covering commercial, residential, and industrial construction across 34 building categories, plus Metro Nashville Master Contractor MCN151894.
Permitting Fluency Across the Region
More than twenty Tennessee jurisdictions, which usually means fewer surprises between drawings and approval.
Feasibility Before Commitment
If you are evaluating a property or a space, we can assess buildability and code path before you sign a lease or a purchase agreement.
Preconstruction That Earns Its Keep
RightStart settles scope, budget, and schedule before mobilization. On a project with an opening date attached, that planning is what protects the date.
Trade Management Is the Job
We are a general contractor. Our team selects and manages licensed trade partners on every job, and we answer for their work.
Both Sides of the Business
Because we also manage custom home projects, our commercial finish work holds to a residential standard of detail.
1993
Building Since
73150
Tennessee License
20 Tennessee
Jurisdictions Licensed
Frequently Asked Questions
Answers to the questions we hear most from commercial owners planning a project.
What is RightStart, and does it apply to commercial work?
RightStart is our preconstruction process, and it matters even more on commercial projects than residential ones. It covers feasibility, code path, scope, budget, and schedule before mobilization. When there is a lease clock or an opening date involved, that planning is what protects it.
How do you work with architects?
We come in during feasibility, before the design is locked, and give the architect real cost and constructability input on what's being drawn. That produces a design that can be built for the budget it was designed to. Waiting until a permit set is complete to discover it's well over budget means redesign and delay, a conversation much better had at the schematic stage.
Can you evaluate a site or space before we sign a lease?
Yes, and it is worth doing. Buildability, code path, and existing conditions determine a large share of your buildout cost. Knowing that before a lease or purchase is signed is considerably cheaper than discovering it after.
Do you handle adaptive reuse projects?
Yes. The critical question in adaptive reuse is what the occupancy change triggers. Egress, fire protection, accessibility, structural, and energy code all shift when a building’s use changes. We evaluate that before a purchase, because it often determines whether the project pencils at all.
Do you work on historic buildings?
Yes. Preservation work operates under a different set of constraints: what can be altered, what must be retained, and which review body has to approve it. We plan for that review process rather than discovering it partway through.
Can you phase construction around an operating business?
Yes. Tenant improvements and restorations often happen around live operations. We plan phasing, hours, and containment so your business keeps running.
Do you handle permitting?
We manage the permitting process and coordinate with the authority having jurisdiction. We've worked with departments across more than twenty Tennessee jurisdictions, and requirements vary more between them than most people expect.
What types of construction are you licensed for?
Our BC classification is the broadest the state issues, covering commercial, residential, and industrial construction across 34 building categories. Most of our commercial work falls in hospitality, restaurants, retail, assembly and event spaces, and reuse or preservation projects.
What size commercial projects do you take on?
Most of our work falls comfortably within our license capacity. For larger projects, Tennessee allows licensed contractors to combine capacity through a joint venture, and that's something we're open to exploring for the right opportunity. Call us with what you're planning and we'll give you an honest read on fit.
How do you handle projects with a hard opening date?
We schedule backward from it and build float where the risk actually sits: long-lead equipment, inspections, and the trades that cannot start until something else finishes. If anything threatens the date, you will hear about it early rather than at the end.
What Our Clients Say About Us
The Expensive Lesson
By the time you see the problem, you've already paid for it.
Most construction disasters don't announce themselves. They hide in assumptions made months earlier: zoning overlooked, utilities assumed, site conditions never questioned. The project feels fine. Money moves. Drawings get signed. Then the shovel hits dirt, and everything unravels at once.
Redesigning costs more. Re-permitting takes months. The budget you trusted? Gone.
The RightStart Checklist catches what you'd otherwise pay to discover.
