McCarthy Guide for Subcontractors

Are you ready to work with a big general contractor like McCarthy? If so, you’re in the right place. This is the subcontractor’s guide to McCarthy Holdings. You can use this guide to find McCarthy’s company history, payment history, prequalification information, subcontractor reviews, and more.

When it comes to working with a new GC, you can’t do enough research. Continue reading to begin your journey with McCarthy.

McCarthy Company Overview

McCarthy was founded by Timothy McCarthy in 1864 in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

With beginnings in barn and farmhouse construction, the company was family-owned and operated for the 138 years that followed. That all changed in 2002, when the company fell under 100% employee ownership.

Since each McCarthy employee has a stake in the company’s future, the firm as a whole strives to bring the best possible service to each of their varied markets and clients.

Over 150 years since their founding, McCarthy boasted a revenue of $4.65 billion in 2019, and they sit in 19th place on the ENR Top 400 Contractors list for 2020.

McCarthy provides design, preconstruction, construction, post construction, safety, quality assurance, technology, and mapping services for their clients. See a full list of services that McCarthy provides here.

Here are the principal markets that McCarthy specializes in:

  • Advanced technology & manufacturing
  • Aviation
  • Commercial
  • Aviation
  • Healthcare
  • Heavy civil & transportation
  • Hospitality & entertainment
  • Industrial
  • Justice
  • Parking
  • Parts & marine terminals
  • Renewable energy
  • Research laboratory
  • Water & wastewater

Lastly, here are a handful of notable projects that McCarthy has worked on in recent years:

McCarthy’s operations are spread across 10 states, with offices located in Atlanta, Austin, Dallas, Denver, Houston, Illinois, Kansas City, Las Vegas, New Mexico, Newport Beach, Omaha, Phoenix, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco, San Jose, and St. Louis.

Before working with McCarthy

Before you reach out to McCarthy for the first time, you should make sure their company is a good fit for you. Prequalifying a new general contractor allows you to get a feel for how a company handles construction projects and works with subcontractors.

In general, there are 5 basic steps to qualifying a general contractor:

The most important thing to remember when prequalifying a general contractor is that you will find some red flags. For the country’s largest general contractors, it would be odd if there were zero payment disputes in their history.

No single payment dispute should be enough to completely write off a general contractor. Rather, it should open up an opportunity for you to reach out and learn more.

Say you find something concerning and you get in touch with the GC to get some context. If the general contractor completely fills you in on what happened, you can tell they value transparency and communication with their subcontractors. These kinds of insights can be far more useful when predicting how a construction project will run under a GC you’ve never worked with before.

McCarthy’s payment profile

One of the best places to begin prequalifying is on McCarthy’s payment profile. Payment profiles compile useful information about contractors across the nation.

McCarthy's Contractor Profile Page
View McCarthy’s Payment Profile

As of this writing, McCarthy has a payment score of 84/100, giving them a B rating. Payment score is a measurement of how quickly or slowly a general contractor makes payments. Levelset compared McCarthy’s payment history with tens of thousands of other general contractors to calculate their payment score. (Learn how a contractor’s payment score is calculated here.)

You can also use payment profiles to read reviews from McCarthy’s previous subcontractors. To date, 18 subcontractors have rated their payment experience with McCarthy, giving the company a rating of 4.6 stars out of 5.

Four subcontractors left written reviews, each of which is positive:

  • “Easy to work with despite being a big GC. Can always talk to someone on the phone when I need to”
  • “Big GC but always does a great job on projects and managing projects with subs”
  • “Great contractor to work with. Payment was easy, swift, and a fairly straightforward process”
  • “Excellent payer, highly recommended A+++”

After subcontractor reviews, you can take a look through McCarthy’s recent payment history.

Recent payment disputes

Levelset has data on over 2,000 construction projects that McCarthy has managed in past years. Since December 2019, at least 11 mechanics liens have been filed on projects that McCarthy was involved in. Of those 11 mechanics liens, eight claimants were hired directly by McCarthy.

Not all payment disputes are the general contractor’s fault. There are many moving parts on every construction project, and things can get muddled very easily.

One of the general contractor’s main responsibilities on a construction project is to make sure payment goes as smoothly as possible. The best way to assess a GC’s ability to do this is to speak with them directly.

McCarthy’s prequalification process

In order to bid on McCarthy projects, you need to get prequalified. If you get everything you need organized beforehand, the process goes by quickly. 

You can begin the qualification process on the trade partners page on McCarthy’s website. From there, you can follow the link to the trade partners prequalification login screen.

If this is your first time prequalifying with McCarthy, you’ll need to click the new user button underneath the login fields. If you’re a returning user, you can login with your credentials.

McCarthy Subcontractor Prequalification system

After you register to access the prequalification system, you’ll be greeted with a questionnaire to fill out. You need the following information to complete the McCarthy prequalification questionnaire:

  • Five key personnel at your company
  • Your company’s specialities
  • The value of projects you’d like to bid on
  • The states where you do business
  • Large or small business certifications
  • A letter of reference from your surety
  • An insurance certificate
  • Business references
  • Five recently completed projects
  • Your current backlog
  • Your revenue volume for the last three years
  • Health and safety information
  • OSHA 300A logs for the last three years
  • Banking information and credit information
  • Current financial statements

General contractors like to prequalify new subcontractors to make sure they have the resources and finances to complete the projects they bid on.

As you work through the application, make sure you save your progress. Any information you enter will not be saved automatically.

You’ll need to attach some files to your prequalification application. To do that, simply click the “select file” button, select the files you wish to attach, and click “open.” All Microsoft Office documents or PDFs are acceptable. 

After everything is filled out and all the boxes are checked, agree to the affidavit at the end of the form and submit your information.

If you have any questions about subcontractor prequalification, you can contact McCarthy with their online form.

You may mail or email any of the requested information to the appropriate regional McCarthy office below:

Central Region
Teagan Neels
1341 North Rock Hill Road
St. Louis, Missouri 63124
tneels@mccarthy.com

Northern Pacific Region
Victoria Guinn
343 Sansome Street, 14th Floor
San Francisco, California 94104
vguinn@mccarthy.com

Southeast/Texas Region
Jenn Weaks
12001 North Central Expressway, Suite 400
Dallas, Texas 75243
jweaks@mccarthy.com

Southwest Region
Maria Robles
6225 N 24th Street, Suite 200
Phoenix, Arizona 85016
mrobles@mccarthy.com

Southern California Region
LeAnn Battle Laridon
20401 S.W. Birch Street, Suite 300
Newport Beach, California 92660
pbattlelaridon@mccarthy.com

MC Industrial
Teagan Neels
3117 Big Bend Blvd.
St. Louis, Missouri 63143
tneels@mccarthy.com

Get paid with McCarthy

This next section covers getting paid with a large general contractor like McCarthy. Continue reading to learn about first payments, progress payments, final payments, close-out, and more.

Before work starts

After you win a bid and before you can begin work, you will most likely need to provide McCarthy with some additional information. Usually, this includes:

  • Your W-9
  • The signed subcontract
  • Insurance certificates
  • Any bonding information related to the project

Your McCarthy project manager will let you know what information you’ll need to provide, but have the above documents ready just in case.

First payments

As we mentioned before, big GCs use the AIA billing process. This includes the G702 payment application and the G703 continuation sheet. You may also send a schedule of values.

Your contract with McCarthy will dictate the deadline for pay apps. These deadlines commonly fall on the 1st, 5th, 10th, 15th, or the 20th of each month, so make sure you have everything in order to submit in time.

It’s imperative that the information you include in your pay app and schedule of values is 100% accurate. Sending documents with inaccuracies or mistakes could result in delayed payment.

Progress payments

If you’re interested in getting paid as the project progresses rather than at the end, progress payments are a good option for you.

To apply for progress payments with McCarthy, you should send them a complete pay app as well as an updated schedule of values.

Apart from that, your contract with McCarthy should outline the path to progress payments. If you have any questions, the McCarthy project administrator will be more than happy to help you out.

Project close-out

The end of the construction project means two things: time for final payment and time for project close-out. Every large general contractor has their own close-out procedures, but they commonly include the following documents:

The best way to go about project close-out is to review any documents you receive with a construction payment expert. Some documents, like lien waivers, could nullify your right to file a mechanics lien in the event of non-payment.

Make sure you know what you’re signing to give yourself the best close-out terms and enough leverage to file a claim if you go unpaid.

3 tips to get paid on every construction project

Sometimes payment issues are impossible to avoid. However, you can set yourself up for success on every project you participate in. No matter who your general contractor is, incorporate these three steps into your payment routine to maximize your chances of getting paid on time.

  • Send preliminary notices. You should send preliminary notices on every project, even if it isn’t required by law. That’s because they keep the owner and GC in the loop on what you’re doing for the project. This can move your invoice to the top of the pile when payment time rolls around.

    Preliminary notices are also often prerequisites to file a mechanics lien in the event of nonpayment. Failure to send one in those states means you lose your lien rights.
  • Send other visibility documents. Visibility documents such as notices of intent to lien, demand letters, and invoice reminders improve communication on construction projects. Keeping your company fresh in everyone’s mind is always a good thing, and sometimes visibility documents can be enough to trigger a payment on their own.
  • Maintain your right to file a mechanics lien. Preserving your mechanics lien rights should be one of your top priorities on every construction project. That’s because mechanics liens are powerful debt recovery tools.

    Because mechanics liens can stop a project in its tracks, you need to meet a series of prerequisites in order to file one. This differs from state to state, but it usually means having a valid contractor’s license, sending the proper notices, meeting the required deadlines, and so on.
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