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V O L . X X V I I N O. X V J U LY 2 6 , 2 0 2 1 20 W hen Ron Milley, president and CEO of CSC New England, took over the com- pany in 2015, he had 18 clients. Six years later, as he and COO John Weeks try to count how many projects CSC has been involved in, they can't come up with an exact number of clients but says they've increased the business by sevenfold. CSC New England's clients have been developers of the Lincoln Mill in Biddeford and the major Portland devel- opment that will house the Covetrus headquarters and Shipyard Brewing Co.'s "brewtel" hotel. Others have been Dunstan Crossing and Cascade residen- tial developments by Elliot Chamberlain in Scarborough and Saco, the Downs in Scarborough and Central Maine Healthcare cancer center in Lewiston. CSC's role begins before shovels go into the ground and lasts until the cer- tificate of occupancy is issued. Yet the name of the company never appears in news accounts about big projects. You won't see Milley and Weeks wearing hard hats and wielding silver shovels with ribbons on them at a ground- breaking. CSC is one of a handful of companies in Maine that does pre-construction inspections, a vital but under-the-radar service that has boomed along with the state's red-hot construction industry. Since he bought the company from Ron Russo in 2015, Milley estimates he's doubled it seven times over. According to the company's website, CSC has represented thousands of projects with total project values exceeding $4 billion across the New England and Mid- Atlantic regions Milley says the secret to what they do is something Russo taught him. "He told me, 'You're there to observe.' I sit and listen and see what's going on." A relationship business Simply put, CSC's job is to make sure a developer has the financial foundation to do a project before a bank will lend the money, and then to monitor the process to make sure the money is being spent the way it's sup- posed to. e bank hires CSC, the developer pays for the service. e company also has an increasing amount of business in pre-sale inspec- tions for real estate brokers. "It's a relationship business," says Joe Delano, senior vice president of commercial lending at Bar Harbor Bank & Trust. He says Milley and his team make the relationship between the bank and developer work. Delano says that commercial real estate lending is high-risk, and when banks are putting tens of millions into it, they have to keep an eye on where the money is going. e FDIC, in recognition of the high risks of commercial real estate lending, has guidance for lenders that stresses careful and regular monitoring of borrowers' projects, including and independent assessment before and dur- ing construction. e focus grew after the 2008-09 recession, as the housing industry collapsed, and has increased as commercial development has boomed. Delano says that CSC's role is vital considering the risks of commercial development and the large amount of money involved. "We do a lot of commercial lending and quite a bit for con- struction of large projects," Delano says. Bankers don't have the time or technical experience to be on job sites monitoring what's going on. "Ron's role, in a large part, is to protect the bank," he says. It's impor- tant to both developers and the bank to get the financing, and the project, done on time while meeting regula- tions and hitting a budget. While it's the bank that hires the pre-inspection firm, developers also have a stake. Developers and banking combined Developer Nathan Bateman, Bateman Partners vice president, said speed and accuracy are important with the monitoring that continues until a development is finished. Bateman, the developer behind 86 Newbury St., the Covetrus-Shipyard project, as well as Central Maine Healthcare's Lewiston cancer center, has been a CSC client since Milley bought the company. "CSC must sign off on all con- struction expenditures and ensure all appropriate lien waivers are signed from the contractor and [Previous company owner Ron Russo] told me, 'You're there to observe.' I sit and listen and see what's going on. — Ron Milley CSC New England P H O T O / T I M G R E E N WAY TAKING the to Some of Maine's biggest developments depend on a small inspection company that remains largely unknown BANK IT B y M a u r e e n M i l l i k e n LEFT TO RIGHT: John Weeks, COO of Consulting Services Commercial, Steve Milley, construction consultant at CSC, Terry Place, project manager at CSC, and Ron Milley, president and CEO, with The Hiawatha in the background on Congress Street in Portland. F O C U S R E A L E S TAT E / C O N S T R U C T I O N / E N G I N E E R I N G

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