PAVING PARKING LOT |
JESSICA LOMBARDO, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Coordination Essential to Complex FAA Project At the beginning of 2021, Mauro Comuzzi, president at The Paving Lady and John Provenzano, estimator, won the bid to reconstruct the Miami Air Route Traffic Control Center (ARTCC) parking lot and for their efforts, won Pavement’s 2022 Paving: Parking Lot award as well.
The Paving Lady relies on experience to complete complicated traffic control parking lot project, winning them Pavement’s 2022 Paving: Parking Lot Award
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ny project for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is not going to be easy and contractors who bid these jobs know that going into it. When you’re presented with a 1,000 page bid package, you either accept the challenge or walk away. At the beginning of 2021, Mauro Comuzzi, president at The Paving Lady and John Provenzano, estimator, took on one such challenge with Parsons, a global general contractor. The company won the bid to reconstruct the Miami Air Route Traffic Control Center (ARTCC) parking lot and for their efforts, won Pavement’s 2022 Paving: Parking Lot award as well. “The Miami ARTCC is the fifth busiest ARTCC in the USA and handles over 2 million aircraft operations a year,” Comuzzi says. “We were approached by Parsons to come in and mill and pave their entire facility, which was mostly parking lots and side roads. We were also asked to complete the
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concrete sidewalk, curbing, ADA repairs and striping throughout the site.” Before their bid was accepted, the company had to be vetted. They needed to show certified payrolls, complete background checks for all team members and provide bonding for the project. Comuzzi and Provenzano didn’t shy away from the job because of these requirements. “I have a background in construction management and John has completed Port Authority work, so we went into this project with a very aggressive outlook,” Comuzzi says.
Given their experience and licensing as a State Certified General Contractor, the company also decided they would act as the general contractor for the project instead of as a paving sub-contractor. “We felt that as a paving contractor, we were going to have the edge if we took it on as a general contractor,” Comuzzi adds. “We typically do not act as a GC but on this project, 90% of the scope was paving, so it was an easy decision for us to act as the prime contractor and that worked out very well for us.”
WHO IS THE PAVING LADY? In 1985, Janice Potter started The Paving Lady to serve communities in South Florida. When she retired in 2016, Mauro Comuzzi took over as president and saw untapped potential for the company. “Janice did a phenomenal job of establishing this company and the reputation of the quality of this business,” Comuzzi says. “When we took this company over, it was like a thoroughbred horse that wanted to run but wasn’t being allowed to run. “We took what Janice started and marketed it a different way. She was mostly into private work when she retired and we took the company into municipal, government, private and commercial. We also started doing a lot of site work and new construction work for site work contractors. So we diversified what we do and that allowed the company to flourish quickly” Today, the company has four times more employees than in 2016 and has grown 20-30% each year. “We are growing in a controlled way, our team is our number one asset and we want to protect them, but we see nothing to stand in the way of our growth,” Comuzzi says.
PAVEMENT MAINTENANCE & RECONSTRUCTION | February 2022 | www.ForConstructionPros.com/Pavement
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