How to Choose a Commercial General Contractor: 7 Questions to Ask

Choosing the wrong commercial general contractor is one of the most expensive mistakes a project owner can make. A low bid that turns into a six-month delay and a stack of change orders will cost ten times what you saved on the contract.

Here are seven questions to ask before you sign.

1. How many projects of this exact type have you delivered in the last 24 months?

Not "commercial" in general — your specific type. A contractor who has built 40 ground-up retail boxes is not necessarily the right firm for a hospital interior renovation. Ask for a list of comparable projects with names, dates, contract values, and owner references you can actually call.

2. What is your EMR and OSHA recordable rate?

The Experience Modification Rate (EMR) is a workers''-comp insurance multiplier. An EMR under 1.0 means a firm has a better-than-average safety record. Anything above 1.0 means above-average claims, and on most enterprise jobs a 1.0 or higher disqualifies the firm. Ask for the last three years of EMRs and OSHA 300A logs.

3. What is your bonding capacity — per project and aggregate?

Bonding capacity is a proxy for financial health. A bonding agent has already underwritten the firm''s balance sheet, backlog, and history. If your project is $8M and the contractor''s single-project bonding capacity is $5M, that is a red flag.

4. Who specifically will run my project, and what is their current workload?

The principal who wins the work is not the person who builds it. Ask for the named project manager and superintendent, their resumes, and what other active projects they are assigned to. A great superintendent stretched across four jobs is worse than an average one focused on yours.

5. How do you handle change orders?

You want to hear about a transparent log, defined markup, and same-week pricing. You do not want to hear "we''ll figure it out as we go." Ask to see a sample change-order log from a recent project. The discipline (or lack of it) will be visible.

6. Walk me through your preconstruction process.

Strong preconstruction is the single best predictor of a successful project. Look for:

• Constructability review against design documents
• Long-lead item tracking
• Subcontractor pre-qualification and bid leveling
• A line-item GMP with realistic contingencies
• A schedule tied to permit dates and inspection cycles

If the answer is "we get bids and add markup," keep interviewing.

7. What happens when the schedule slips?

Every project hits friction. The question is how the contractor responds. A mature CGC will describe their recovery process: weekly look-aheads, manpower loading, second-shift options, and an early-warning system tied to the critical path. A weak CGC will blame subs and weather.

Red flags to watch for

• No project manager named in the proposal
• Reluctance to share EMR or financial statements
• Excessive contingency or vague allowances hiding scope gaps
• Owner references that are all from the same year (no repeat clients)
• Bid significantly below the next-lowest number (someone missed scope)

The right way to compare bids

Always compare scope-leveled bids — same drawings, same allowances, same exclusions, same schedule. A spreadsheet with three numbers tells you almost nothing. A spreadsheet that reconciles those numbers line-by-line tells you everything.

If you are interviewing commercial general contractors for a multi-state rollout or a complex interior project, request a consultation and we will walk you through how we structure preconstruction for clients in healthcare, retail, restaurant, and tenant-improvement work across the western US.