The Muchalat Group of Companies constructs buildings in their plant and moves them to their final destination for clients
COMOX VALLEY – Tania Formosa is at the forefront of The Muchalat Group of Companies, and she has watched the second generation family business grow into a prominent Comox Valley luxury home builder that has added a rapidly expanding modular building division.
Muchalat is the developer and contractor for some of the highest-priced luxury projects in the Comox Valley, including Corinthia Estates, a six-luxury condo building at Crown Isle Golf Course, and the oceanfront The Shores at King Coho Beach project.
“Muchalat has built many custom luxury homes,” notes Andrena Koch-Schulte. “Their last multi-family project Mayorsthorne Lane is a great example of their high quality construction that was priced more for the affordable marketplace, and the project quickly sold out.”
Andrena points out that Muchalat has been loyal to their many suppliers.
“Their chosen cabinet firm has been with them for 20 years, installing cabinets in the penthouses, and also in the more mid-range priced condos and modular homes,” she adds. “The same high quality building they are known for has moved into indoor modular construction.”
Tania concurs, stating “We stick with our usual consultants and trades. Even though we have our own in-house electricians and tradespeople, on occasion we bring in outside trades and lean on them. That isn’t normal in the industry, to have your own electrical department and still utilize outside contractors.”
The Muchalat Group of Companies is a prominent Comox Valley luxury home builder
In 2008, Muchalat bid on a design-build, modular duplex for the Department of National Defense (DND) at CFB Comox in a ‘controlled environment’.
“We didn’t exactly know what that meant at first, so we priced the one-acre building and got the job, then learned how to do modular buildings,” Tania recalls. “Since then, DND carried on with these design-build projects and for some reason we were the only builders doing it, and we did five of them before another company figured it out. By that time, BC Housing was knocking on our door for other projects, so we’ve been doing that for the past eight years and it’s become the bulk of our work.”
Much of the building is done within their plant, then assembled or placed on the job sites.
“Inside the factory, we complete as much as possible, including installing cabinetry, plumbing, flooring, and we have our own trucks to do our own transport to the site,” she says, adding each phase typically takes around four months to build in the plant. “Because of that, we can install in phases, whether that’s a single family building that can be installed on site in three hours, or a larger project that might take two weeks to a month. Depending on the project, if it’s a single family site we can do in three hours, or a bigger project two weeks to a month. Our time lines are much shorter than conventional construction.”
Muchalat Construction builds a wide variety of building designs
It was Tania’s father, Joe Formosa, that started the company in 1979, and Joe, mother Diane and Tania’s brothers Joel and Justin all work within the Group, which includes
Muchalat Construction, Muchalat Projects and Muchalat Modulars and altogether, has 90 employees.
A number of women work throughout the organization.
“We have women working in the office, and we also have women on our framing crew, painters, female finishing carpenters, and other trades,” Tania states. “Women are just as capable of doing all of the trades as men are. In the industry there aren’t a lot of women, but we have equal opportunities for everyone. We’re very understanding if one of our employees has to leave early to pick up children from school, for example, and that works well for everyone.”
The Muchalat Group is growing at a fast pace, which Tania attributes to the strong relationships they maintain and keep due to their trust and honesty.
“Our repeat customers are repeat for a reason,” she adds. “We have always built above the industry standard, and we pride ourselves on that.”
