Building local: what it means to be a Tucson independent construction business

Tucson is a hyperlocal place. We are a true community and it sometimes feels like a small town because everyone knows everyone. There is a tremendous sense of local pride- in our businesses, in our social lives, and even the question “so, are you from here?” (sometimes accompanied by side-eye!).  In a city like this, your reputation is everything, especially in a niche part (building ADUs and casitas) of a larger industry like residential construction. 

We at Unstoppable Construction rely entirely on word of mouth for our business. Partly because being a small business owner is exhausting: after the project management and purchasing and accounting and design meetings and jobwalks, the idea of a huge marketing campaign feels impossible. Also who has the funds for that? Also, it’s just not our area of expertise. We are involved in local organizations within our industry that can help with word of mouth: like Build Women Tucson, a flagship group of female designers and builders. But mostly, we choose to let our projects and clients speak for us: we do construction, and we do it well. That’s what we are best at. We believe if we continue to serve our clients well and do good work, that it will pay off for us in the form of referrals. 

Jon, one of the partners of Unstoppable, has been in construction in Tucson since 1983. He’s worked on hundreds of jobsites (just try driving around town with him sometime, he’ll let you know!) and has dealt with countless vendors. It is these deep roots in the industry that has helped us to build our incredible team. Our stucco contractor is a third generation Tucson plasterer. Jon knew him when he would come to work with his dad as a teenager! One of our finish carpenters has been in business in Tucson for over 30 years. Both partners of Unstoppable have experience in the commercial world, and we pull the vendors that have the professionalism to build apartments but are small enough to want to work on casitas with us. Being local and in the industry for so long gives us this advantage to put together the best performing and most dependable roster. 

Since we are local and we also have experience in Affordable Housing, we are active in this sector of our city. We have been pulled into policy discussions with the City of Tucson as well as Pima County, and given input in public forums. We have been a part of a push to rezone a certain “dead” zone to allow for more housing in an affluent area that is experiencing a shortage, especially of workforce and attainable units. We participate in Cyclovia, Park(ing) Day, and have helped on Tucson Clean and Beautiful builds. We are YIMBYs and support policy like the Missing Middle Housing and of course the ADU code changes. We are proud to support the needs of Tucsonans around housing and transportation. We are truly passionate about what we do and we feel that supporting infill housing by empowering community members to build in their own backyards is the best and highest use of our talents.  

What can we build in your backyard?