An influx of new projects at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, North Carolina Central University and East Carolina University, spurred Monteith Construction to open a third office in downtown Raleigh recently.

“We’ve been working in the Raleigh area for the better part of three years on a number of projects, so the move made sense to get local to the region,” said John Monteith, founder and president of Monteith Construction. The company opened its Raleigh office in mid-August.

The company was originally founded in Charlotte in 1998. When it received the bid to renovate the main terminal of the Wilmington International Airport in 2001, it began to plant its roots here, a model it has replicated recently in Raleigh. The company opened its Wilmington office in 2005.

“We move as the opportunities present themselves. As a smaller company, we have the flexibility,” Monteith said.

Currently, the Wilmington team, which is comprised of about 10 staff, is building the Cape Fear Community College parking deck downtown, which will be complete by the end of this year and the Lower Cape Fear Hospice in Brunswick County, which will be complete by June.

The Raleigh team is working on a new medical and dental learning facility for East Carolina University based in Ahoskie, N.C. It is the first of about 10 such facilities the university will build throughout the state, Monteith said. They are also building the seventh floor sunroom for the UNC children’s hospital. The new office has only four staff currently, but hopes to grow to about 10 staff over the next three years.

“It will grow based on what opportunities come our way up there,” Monteith said.

Opening an office in Wilmington in 2005 was an easy decision for Monteith, who is originally from Toronto.

“It’s place a lot of people want to be,” he said. “[And,] it has the business to back it up.”

As for the company’s business in Wilmington, he said it’s still strong. Building and renovating institutions, such as schools and hospitals, have always been a large part of the company’s project portfolio. But, healthcare has been the strongest sector throughout the recession, he said. They are working on renovating New Hanover Regional Medical Center’s kitchen and adding an elevator in its MRI facility.

Although the company’s accounting is centralized at the Charlotte office, Monteith has avoided creating a company headquarters. Each of the offices is self-sufficient and manages projects in their geographic location.

The company also has projects in other parts of the state, including Asheville, where it completed the Agricultural Center, and Lumberton, where it’s working on a project for the Southeastern Regional Medical Center. They are also in the planning stages of building a new Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP) charter school in Gaston, which is near the North Carolina and Virginia border.

However, Monteith does not foresee opening a fourth office in the immediate future.