What If Construction Borrowed More From Hospitality?

Every once in a while, an idea from outside your industry changes the way you think about your own.

A few years ago, our leadership team at MAREN heard Airbnb co-founder Brian Chesky describe the company's famous "11-Star Experience." Around the same time, we read Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara. Neither had anything to do with construction, but both challenged us to think differently about the way our clients are treated.

It left us with one simple question:

Why is construction okay with the status quo?

Communication, quality, and schedule are the foundation of every successful project. Clients expect those things, and they should.

But when people look back on a project, they rarely talk about the weekly meetings or the email updates. They remember how the relationship started, whether the team understood what mattered to them, how challenges were handled, and whether they felt like they had a true partner throughout the process.

In other words, they remember how they felt.

Those are questions the hospitality industry has been asking for years. We think construction should ask them too.

Construction is a service business that happens to build buildings.

That realization changed the way we think about our role.

Yes, we're builders. But before a client ever walks into a completed building, they spend months working alongside the people building it.

Most contractors think they're delivering a project.

We believe we're delivering an experience.

Not an over-the-top experience. A thoughtful one. One where every interaction helps build trust, confidence, and stronger relationships.

The client experience belongs to the project team.

At MAREN, the people leading your project are also responsible for how it feels to work with us.

Our project managers, superintendents, and estimators aren't just managing schedules and budgets. They're building relationships. They're leading meetings, solving problems, communicating clearly, and creating confidence every step of the way.

Because that's where trust is built—right there in the day-to-day interactions that happen throughout a project.

Demo Day at High Country Outfitters

Understanding the importance of this milestone, we created a special demolition experience for the High Country Outfitters team as we kicked off construction of their flagship store in Buckhead.

We start with curiosity.

Internally, we use the idea of the 11-Star Experience as a challenge, not a program. It simply reminds us to ask a better question:

If we wanted this client talking about this project five years from now, what would we do differently?

Sometimes the answer has everything to do with construction. Sometimes it has everything to do with the people.

That's why we spend time understanding what matters to our clients before we start building. What are they trying to accomplish? What are they excited about? What concerns them? What's happening in their organization while this project is underway?

Understanding the story behind the project changes how we communicate, solve problems, and show up every day.

Serious about the work. Comfortable being ourselves.

We don't take ourselves too seriously. But we're very serious about the work we do.

We believe professionalism and personality can coexist. Our clients trust us with meaningful projects, and we never lose sight of that responsibility. At the same time, we've found that people enjoy working with people who are authentic, approachable, and genuinely invested in their success.

That's the kind of team we've worked hard to build.

An Uncommonly Refreshing Construction Experience

We're not trying to turn construction into hospitality. We're simply borrowing a few lessons from an industry that has spent decades thinking about how people perceive service.

Our goal is to create a construction experience that's authentic, thoughtful, and maybe even a little refreshing. Because when people enjoy working together, communication improves, trust grows, problems get solved faster, and projects benefit.

The building will always matter. We just think the process of getting there should matter too.

That's the standard we're chasing.