Step into the world of innovation and excellence with “Industry Champions”! Join us as we celebrate the trailblazers who are redefining success across diverse industries, sharing their journeys, strategies, and secrets to thriving in competitive landscapes. Today our host, Chris Budihas, spoke with Scott Callaway.
Scott Callaway
Director of Business Development at Avant
Website Address: https://avant-build.com/
Short company description:
At Avant Construction Group, we’re a commercial construction company in Jacksonville, FL proudly serving the Southeastern U.S. We specialize in ground-up builds, interior buildouts, and consulting. With a collaborative, detail-driven approach, we focus on historic, commercial, retail, hospitality, and restaurant projects for both national and local clients. Our team is committed to delivering high-quality craftsmanship, staying on schedule, and keeping communication clear through every phase of the project. From planning to final walkthrough, we bring experience, professionalism, and integrity to every build.
How do you define success?
Uplifting and activating our community while supporting our Team and their families.
How did you get started in your field of work?
I did hot tar roofing before I joined the navy. After I transitioned from the service, I found a company that matched my values and that I could see through a second retirement.
What was the most impactful moment of your transition out of the military?
Realizing that the skills I learned in the military were a value in the civilian world.
Who in your industry do you see as a trend setter and why
Avant because most construction companies want a clean-cut project to build. We enjoy the dirty, dusty, and historical builds but we feel that history should be preserved as it is part of our city’s DNA.
Transcript:
Chris:
I’m your host, Chris Budihas, host. Standing here at Tommy McManus’s bar at the Horse’s Mouth in the studio, I have Scott Callaway with Abbott Construction Group. Scott, how are you doing?
Scott:
Great. How are you?
Chris:
Good to see you, man. So before you get into the industry side of things, you were in the Navy. So thanks for your service and you were worth serving.
Scott:
Yeah, yeah, yeah it’s great. I always tell people we live in such a great patriotic community what you do in the Navy. For the first 20 years, I was a sonar tech. So, 100 submarines on the surface. That was a really awesome job.
In fact, I had the opportunity to help rewrite how we certify units to do anti-submarine warfare in the Navy. So the kids. It was a pretty neat opportunity.
But then I switched over some. I call it the dark side. I didn’t go, officer. You became they.
Chris:
Yeah. Yeah. They ship.
Scott:
Yeah. I became, command senior chief. Yeah. And I, my intent was to go 30 years. Right. But they said I was going to make Master Chief, and I said, okay.
Was that me? Yeah. And they said, well, you’re either going to go to Bahrain, Romania or somewhere else, but all of them were unaccompanied.
And at the time I have, or I had an eight year old autistic child at home that we were going through. Right. She’s now 12. She’s doing great. That’s awesome.
But I didn’t want to leave my wife with her. I’d already been on. I mean, I did ten deployments, so she had been through enough, and I was like, I’m not going to put her through those three more years.
But I’m glad I made the decisions that I made because it led me to where I’m at today.
Chris:
That’s great. So let’s get to Avant. So what do you guys do? Is a commercial construction is residential.
Scott:
Well, I’m going to answer that with a yes. Okay. And I think the last time we talked, I wouldn’t have been a yes.
So there’s been a change in the last nine months. A little bit, a little bit. So Avant is a commercial construction company. Our niche is historic adaptive reuse.
Chris:
Yeah. So if it’s dusty, dirty, and nobody else wants to do it.
Scott:
That’s right, that’s right. Our wheelhouse. But we also do, we do ground up builds. Okay. So we’ve done some apartment complexes.
Some of the most notable ones that you’ve probably seen in the news is, the trio downtown that has ties to Frank Lloyd Wright.
We’re going to be redoing that one. They’re just going through some things and making sure designs and all that kind of good stuff is wrapped up and taken care of.
But we’re going to try to save all three of those buildings. I know that’s been a big concern for the community, because it does have that historical significance to it.
Right now we’re also working on the Barnett building. Okay. There’s three floors that weren’t done or redone.
Chris:
What was the Barnett Building originally?
Scott:
You know, I don’t remember. I think it was one of the banks, if I remember correctly.
But, one of our clients, he actually moved down here, a guy by the name of Muhammad, and he brought his company to part of his southern headquarters here.
So he bought the Barnett building, and then he’s in the process of doing the trio as well.
And then we wrapped up, or we’re wrapping up the Greenleaf building. We’ve redone all 12 floors.
The only thing that is left is in that corner where Jacob’s jewelry used to be. Yeah. That is going to be the Oak Steakhouse.
Chris:
Oh, and it’s a top ten steakhouse in the nation. It’s supposed to be amazing. I can’t wait. I love a good steakhouse.
Scott:
But I think the cooler part of that whole build, not that the steakhouse isn’t going to be amazing, but in the basement where all they had where they had all the fine jewelry and stuff like that, where they make a speakeasy.
And so we are going to put the first ever in Jacksonville.
Chris:
Yeah. Street access to a basement.
Scott:
So we are literally going to cut a stairwell in, on the marquee that’s right there by the big black, historical clock. Right.
We’re going to cut in a stairwell going down, and that’s going to become a speakeasy. So it’s cool.
Chris:
Cool. That’s going to be fun.
Scott:
It is because they used to have an elevator, and we thought that they just tore it out.
Well, when we started looking, they actually abandoned it in place. They took it all the way to the bottom and they abandoned it in place.
So even like the little ratchet system that used to take it to the different floors and it would have a bell or elevator tender, I can’t remember what they call those guys. Almost like a bellhop.
Right. That had that mechanical system in there. So it was really cool. We were able to save some of that. We’re going to use that to kind of give you that experience when you walk into these.
Chris:
That’s awesome. Yeah.
Common, you know, point of discussion, you know, here at the bar downstairs and then just out in town is, you know, how do we, you know, get downtown Jacksonville thriving and what do you guys do? And as part of that. Right.
Because you got to have nightlife, you have shopping at work and such. And then my wife and I, through our military time ourselves, we live in a lot of historical houses and we love it, but we know that maintaining or renovating a historical location, whether it’s a house or building, you need to have somebody as an expert to do that.
Scott:
Well, you need a team. Yeah. And I think that’s the difference here is that you really need a team.
And I don’t mean a team like a good developer and a good GC. I mean a good developer, a good team and good partnership with the city.
Because downtown doesn’t get rebuilt if the entire team doesn’t work together. Okay.
And it doesn’t matter whether you’re Republican or Democrat or if you’re purple or green or it doesn’t matter. Yeah.
You all have to be, you know, focused on what is the end mission. Yeah. And how are we going to get there?
And so, one of the new additions that we’ve gotten to the city, who’s not as new now, but Colin with the, Dia and that funding, their team that they have together is amazing.
And what they do. And I actually had a conversation with him. I said, you know, he’s not always going to say yes.
Because there’s a lot of money that has to go into these because it takes about 66% more to redo a historical building than it does to just do a new ground up. Okay.
But you can never replace that historical significance. And I think that’s important.
And so it’s very important that the city recognizes this. That’s important.
They’re able to help developers, you know, so subsidize that cost so that they can actually do it and it pencils out for them.
And I think for a lot of people, the misconception is, oh, we’re throwing all this money at these people and we’re making them rich.
No I mean I’m sure they’re going to be fine. Yeah. At the end of the day.
But if they didn’t have those incentives we wouldn’t be rebuilding downtown.
Chris:
Right. And so knock everything down.
Scott:
Right. Yeah.
And so the return on investment and that’s something that the city looks at is what is the return on investment.
They are paying attention to what they get for the money that they give.
And so it’s not just a one way road. They’re actually going to receive more in the end than they’re putting out, whether it be through taxable dollars, or, you know, taxes on real estate, all of that stuff.
You’re activating an entire downtown. And that is amazing.
Chris:
So as we look to close out a little bit here and, well, I know you can only continue this conversation, what area geographically are you guys servicing since we’re a nationwide, actually international show?
Scott:
Yeah. No. Where are you guys at?
Well, so when I took over the Director of Business development, our comment was always that we didn’t want to drive past work, to go to work. Okay.
And I appreciate that because being, you know, in the Navy and transitioning every three years, you know, that gets a little tiresome.
So we do like to keep our core people here. And we will continue to do that. We’re not going anywhere. Jacksonville’s our home.
But when I took over the business development side, I told our CEO I wanted to take us nationwide.
And he said, that’s fine. Do it without, you know, adding a dime of overhead. Yeah.
And, I said, okay. Yeah.
And here we are today. I can go to all 50 states if we want to. No kidding.
So we’ve got we’re look at stuff in Alabama and Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina.
Somebody asked me to come to Connecticut. Okay. You know, I’m probably not going to go that far up.
And there are some challenges, depending on where you’re at, whether it’s, you know, unions and how you fold in with, or different bureaucracies. Some are easier than others.
But if a client asks us to go, we’re ready to go.
And I’ve got everything set up so that we can take care of them and do it in a manner that we would do here in Jacksonville.
I mean, we’re even looking at the Bahamas. There’s a client that we’re talking to for the Bahamas.
That would be about a two year project. Okay. We’ll just ship everything over and take care of it there.
Chris:
That’s excellent.
So since you are in growth mode, how do you folks find the company and how do folks find you?
Scott:
Well, you can go to a vaunt, dash buildcon. Okay.
And that would really put you on our main website.
And if you want to contact us, you’re interested and we’ll put out a lot of our, you know, what we almost call it’d be an invitation, a bid, but it’s more of a, Hey, we’re looking for these individuals.
We’ll put that on, and we’ll put that in a lot of different places. Okay.
We do have our own H.R. That is taking care of those kinds of things.
We are in growth mode for sure, but we like to say a strategic growth mode.
When we hire somebody. There are a lot of construction companies that will hire somebody for the job.
And then you know, they don’t know it. But at the end of that project, they no longer have a job.
Well, our view is if we are going to hire you, our intention is to take care of you and you will be able to be here for an entire career.
So we strategically look at that, we focus on it. It’s part of our core values.
We want to be loyal to the people that work with us, and we want them to be loyal to us.
Chris:
And I love that. I mean, you truly are in the people business, the people that own the property, but also the people that work for your organization.
No doubt you know that that impacts, knowing your performance as a company, but also your retention as a result of being people focused as a company.
So we’ll take all the contact information, Scott. We’ll put it in our show notes and encourage folks that reach out to you and take a look at Avante.
And then, if they got a need, you know, give up on that and have a conversation. That’s absolutely how you guys continue to potentially work together.
So thanks a lot.
Scott:
Thank you.
Chris:
Folks, thanks for joining us on Industry Champions. See you in our next segment, and live with gratitude.
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