The worst moment in a commercial construction project is usually a meeting. The architect says the drawing is correct. The contractor says the drawing cannot be built for the number in the budget. Both of them are right. The client, who has already spent months and real money on design, discovers that the building they approved does not exist at the price they were told.
This happens because of how most projects are structured. The owner hires a designer, then puts the finished design out to bid. Two contracts, two companies, two sets of incentives, and a gap in the middle that the client falls into.
Focus Design Builders exists to close that gap.
Design-build, explained without jargon
One company. One contract. One point of accountability from the first sketch to the last coat of paint.
Focus is primarily a design-build firm and makes the case openly that it is the lowest-risk delivery method available to an owner. The reason is structural rather than promotional. When the people drawing the building and the people constructing it work for the same company, there is nobody to blame. A detail that cannot be built at the target cost gets caught in the design phase, because the estimator is in the room.
Their stated measure of success is how well they delivered on service, relationships, communication, and building the right building for the need, which is an unusual list to lead with for a construction company.
Projects run through a proprietary process they call Focus OnePoint E2E. It starts with preliminary feasibility discussions, where they work through what the project actually needs and investigate the site or facility. Then schematic design and budget, developed together rather than in sequence.
That last point is the whole thing. Design and budget, at the same time, by the same team.
David Williams, Jr.
The founder grew up in Wake Forest.
He earned a bachelor’s degree in Geography with a concentration in City and Regional Planning from UNC Charlotte, which is a more useful credential for this work than it sounds, and holds a North Carolina General Contractor’s license.
In 1999 he formed Williams Custom Building, Inc. He took it from a startup with $110,000 in annual gross revenue to a well-established company grossing $1.5 million before partnering with Paul and Craig to form Focus Design Builders.
He has worked every part of the residential side, from home improvements through subdivision and commercial development, and he owns or partners in several other construction and real estate companies, including Triangle Waste Service, Triangle Asset Group, and Willfair.
BuildZoom puts the firm’s score at 110, in the top 4% of more than 101,000 licensed North Carolina contractors, across 116 building permits totaling roughly $38.9 million in work.
What they have built around here
The portfolio tells you what kind of firm this is.
Benchmark Community Bank, Heritage Wake Forest. A 4,128-square-foot renovation of an existing building, and a repeat engagement: Focus had previously remodeled a Youngsville building for the same client.
Alpaca, a 3,400-square-foot restaurant in Wake Forest built from the ground up.
Youngsville Fire Department Station 1, a renovation and addition. The team attended the groundbreaking.
Crumbl Cookies, another repeat client, with locations at Heritage Wake Forest and Brier Creek.
A bank, a restaurant, a fire station, and a cookie franchise. Different building types, different code requirements, different clients, all within a few miles.
Their tagline runs through everything they publish: it’s more than just a building. Their expanded version is that a building is where you work, where you serve, where you learn, and where you make an impact.
The adaptive reuse specialty
Focus has built out a practice around adaptive reuse, which is the business of turning an older building into a modern space rather than putting up something new.
This is the right specialty for this town. Wake Forest’s downtown revival was substantially built on exactly this move: a cotton warehouse became The Cotton Company, a 1930s car dealership became White Street Brewing, a warehouse became The Loading Dock, a factory became The Factory.
Focus makes the practical case for it. Older buildings often sit in the best locations, carry character you cannot build new, and cost less to convert than to replace. What stops most owners is not the idea, it is the unknowns.
They also help clients navigate the money. North Carolina’s State Rural Grants for Building Reuse program offers funding for businesses revitalizing existing spaces, and there are public-private partnership structures available. A firm that knows which programs apply and how to document them is worth a meaningful amount before a single wall comes down.
Why single-team matters to a small business owner
If you are opening a restaurant or moving a growing company into its first real building, you are not a professional construction client. You will not run another project like this for a decade.
Under the traditional model, you are the one holding two contracts and standing in the gap when they disagree. Under design-build, the firm holds both ends and you hold one relationship.
That is the whole argument, and for anyone building once rather than continuously, it is the one that counts.
Focus Design Builders, 881 Falcate Drive, Wake Forest. focusdesignbuilders.com