After 78 years in the commercial building industry, the Larry O. Collins Inc. construction firm is calling it quits.
The pipeline of local projects has all but dried up while competition for work and bonding costs continue to increase, factors that contributed to the decision to close the still-solvent Vancouver company, said Casey Collins, one of three principal owners. The business was started in 1933 by Collins’ grandfather, the late Larry Collins. In the mid-1970s, Larry Collins’ son Mike Collins, 71, took the helm. It is now overseen by his sons, Pat Collins, 50; Tom Collins, 49; and Casey, 46.
The company has no employees at this time. The Collins family will continue to operate its real-estate leasing and equipment rental businesses from its Hazel Dell headquarters at 7017 Highway 99.
“Closing was a decision we had to make while we could still satisfy all of our debt,” Casey Collins said.
At the peak of Clark County’s commercial construction boom, Collins said Larry O. Collins Inc. generated about $8 million a year in gross sales. Over the last few years, the company has struggled to keep its balance sheet in the black.
Public contracts to build state, county and city projects were the bread and butter of the firm’s portfolio. The work has decreased with dwindling municipal budgets, Collins said.
It has also become cost-prohibitive to purchase construction bonds, which skyrocketed in cost during the post-building boom as a growing number of general contractors failed to meet their contract obligations.
“They want you to sign over every asset you have,” Collins said. “It doesn’t matter that I’ve never had a claim.”
The situation and the shortage of projects poses too much risk for Larry O. Collins to remain in business.
“You’ve got so many contractors bidding for so little work right now,” Collins said.
He said one of the last bids his company lost out on was the “515 Restack,” a roughly $2 million project to transform the former Columbian building into Vancouver’s new city hall at 415 W. Sixth St.
The industrywide commercial building slump has affected contractors throughout Clark County, although some have been able to find jobs out of the area, said Mike Bomar, executive director of the 211-member Southwest Washington Contractors Association.
Bomar said Larry Collins was among the original founders of the trade group, which posts development plans that contractors use to prepare bids for both government and private projects.
“It’s very sad to see this company go,” Bomar said. “There are certainly some companies that have been around for a long time that just can’t survive under the current conditions.”
