Based in Limerick city, P.B.C. Ltd has forged a reputation for carrying out high quality work on time and within budget. Building Ireland found out more from company director Patrick Burke recently.
Since its establishment, P.B.C. Ltd has been carrying out construction services, property maintenance and fit-outs all over Ireland, earning a trusted reputation amongst its clients in the process.
Indeed the Limerick-based and family-run company is to this day relied upon by factories, hospitals, medical facilities, schools, colleges, banks, and credit unions, as well as home owners.
Originally founded by Pat Burke in 1979, the company is today run by his sons Patrick and David and Building Ireland caught up with the former to learn all about the business which is thriving at present.
“We’re established 39 years this year and right now we’re employing 35 staff on the ground with a further 8 in the office.” Patrick stated.
“We’re a family-run business which was originally started by my father Pat. My brother David and I have been running the business as directors in more recent years but our father is still involved as a director/advisor. I’m with the company 20 years now in total.”
Those two decades have flown by for Patrick, who has seen the business grow from strength to strength and become one of its directors in the meantime.
P.B.C.’s maintenance service has always supported their clients and it’s something which has helped to guarantee the company repeat business more and more.
“We’re building contractors but over the years we’ve explored different avenues and got into maintenance and we’ve built up a good clientele list,” explained Patrick.
“Maintenance was a way to keep our relationship with clients that we’ve done work with and it’s worked very well for us. We’d be working for companies mostly throughout Munster, Leinster and some parts of Connacht as well.”
The majority of recent projects have been taking place a lot closer to home for P.B.C. Ltd. Work at the University of Limerick, which is also simply known as UL, has been going on since last summer and they’re now about ready to wrap up the project, according to Patrick.
“We’re working on a student facility at the University of Limerick which is coming to a close in the coming weeks. We would have started it in August,” he said.
“We’re also working on the upgrade of a production facility for Rigid Ireland, which are a cardboard manufacturer in Limerick city. It’s a 20,000 square foot extension on the existing facility, with upgrading of their facility also being tied in with the project.
“We also have some residential work going on based around the city.”
The team at P.B.C Ltd has a wealth of experience in virtually all types of new construction, from initial planning through to completion. The company has high quality professionals committed to providing outstanding client service.
They understand that constructing a new home or residential property is an important step for any client and ensures to provide the proper support to make it a pleasant experience.
P.B.C. Ltd’s experience encompasses a great number of projects ranging from the construction of terraced houses, reconstruction and refurbishment of listed buildings, apartments mixed with commercial units, luxury penthouses and individual residences and highly complex refurbishment projects.
During the years of the economic downturn which devastated the construction industry in this country, P.B.C. Ltd battled through and Patrick’s happy to report that things have been very much on the up lately.
“Business has been picking up since 2014,” he said. “The volume of work has definitely increased and overall the work is being carried out by trades to a better standard.”
“We’ve always ran a tight ship here. We never took too many risks and just concentrated on working towards our own limits. When things did eventually take a turn for the worst we were very much on stable ground, thankfully.”
Nonetheless, the competition still remains fierce when it comes to some of the high scale projects which the Burkes are entrusted with year on year.
So what’s the secret? Why do clients choose P.B.C. Ltd first ahead of others for their projects?
“Coming from the background of a family business, we try and give every single client the same attention whether they’re big or small,” Patrick outlined.
“We have ranging skills and we were the first building company in Limerick to be Safe-T-Cert accredited. A lot of the lads we have here we’ve trained ourselves.”
He continued: “It’s down to the personal touch we give our clients with the lads that we have here. We’ve built up our reputation, earned the experience and everyone is a valued member here.”
Add in the fact that the company has the best part of 40 years’ experience in the maintaining of both large and small businesses and you begin to understand why even more.
P.B.C. Ltd prides itself on the discrete manner in which we carry out our work. From college campuses to multi-national grocery stores and from 12-hour shut downs to 12-day shutdowns, their wide and extensive range of reactive and preventative maintenance caters for both one off calls and planned program of maintenance visits.
Budgets tailored to each individual client along with progress reports and update meetings with the client is just one of the many services that they provide.
P.B.C. Ltd can create a planned program of works to be completed weekly or bi-weekly.
“Right now we have 20 vans on the road,” said Patrick. “We also have five trucks on the road, including a truck crane. We invest annually in our transport so clients do not have any issues when they need us right away.”
Looking towards the year ahead, Patrick concluded that he’s content to keep things going the way they have been.
“We’re happy to continue to grow our prestigious developments and keep our clients that have been loyal to us. We’re also hoping to get an A-grade in our Safe-T-Cert by the year 2020,” he concluded.
P.B.C. Ltd
Unit E5,
Eastway Business Park
Limerick
Tel: 061 417 474
Fax: 061 410 923
E-mail: [email protected]
Taken from Building Ireland Magazine, March 2018, Vol 4 No 3
