HQ sale signals leadership change at Kjellstrom & Lee Construction

Kjellstrom & Lee’s been on Ownby Lane since the early 2000s. (Mike Platania photo)

A local construction company’s headquarters property recently changed hands in a deal that signifies a changing of the guard in its upper ranks.

Longtime partners at Kjellstrom & Lee Construction last month sold its building at 1603 Ownby Lane near The Diamond to a group of younger employees for $3.2 million.

Chairman and CEO Pete Alcorn said the deal comes as the firm’s partners have been gradually selling their ownership stakes and handing over management of the company to younger higher-ups at Kjellstrom & Lee. 

Alcorn said folks like President Rick Berrey, CFO Derrick Vaughan, VP David Turner, Executive Matt Holloman, Superintendent Brett Tucker, and Directors Anthony Harika and Chris Lowder are among those who have been taking over the company. The group is taking the reins from Alcorn and Executive Vice President Fulton Sensabaugh, who have been with the firm for decades. 

“It truly is a passing of the baton,” Alcorn said. “There’s a whole group – I call them kids but they’re 40-year-old kids – that are in effect running the company now and doing a great job.”

Pete Alcorn

Kjellstrom & Lee has been on Ownby Lane since 2001, when it bought its 1.4-acre plot for $184,000, per city records. The property, which sold on June 26, was most recently assessed by the city at $2.7 million. 

Alcorn said the roughly 9,800-square-foot office “is not some great monument to architecture,” but that it’s functional. It’s close to billions of dollars of ongoing new development like the Diamond District, VCU’s Athletic Village, and a 5-story apartment building from Mid-America Apartment Communities next door. 

Alcorn said in recent years, particularly after Hardywood Park Craft Brewery revamped its taproom and the adjacent Brewer’s Row residential development got underway, Kjellstrom & Lee has had plenty of developers come knocking on its door showing interest in its Ownby property. 

“We’ve been getting pounded by developers that wanted to buy it and tear it down. (But) we really like being here,” Alcorn said.

“We’re so busy right now and moving’s not easy. It was going to cost a fair amount wherever we went, and it takes us away from focusing on our day job, which is building buildings.… This was a real win-win. Now when developers call me wanting to buy the property, I can say, ‘Sorry, it’s been sold.’”

Kjellstrom & Lee does work all over the state. Locally, it has worked on the recent renovation of The Martin Agency’s Shockoe Slip office, a Bon Secours medical center in Chesterfield County and The James River Association’s new riverfront education center. Between the Ownby Lane office and a second spot in Staunton, Alcorn said Kjellstrom & Lee has about 125 employees. 

The company was founded in 1961, and from 1983 to 1998 Kjellstrom & Lee was owned by Gilbane Building Co. Alcorn was part of the group that bought the company back from Gilbane in 1998.

Across the street from Kjellstrom & Lee is 1602 Ownby Lane, where architecture firm LaBella Associates operates. Its office sold just over two years ago to a Raleigh-based investment group who said at the time that they were not looking to redevelop the site. 

The post HQ sale signals leadership change at Kjellstrom & Lee Construction appeared first on Richmond BizSense.