MEP Project Manager

FCL Builders, a 50-year-old, employee-owned national contractor built around industrial distribution, cold storage, and data center construction, is bringing project leadership into the Kansas City market for the first time. As Project Manager, you will own a project start to finish: contract and scope, schedule, budget, subcontractor buyout, change orders, and the day-to-day relationship with the owner's representative. You will work shoulder to shoulder with a dedicated Superintendent and a lean project team, on projects that are big-box and big-box-adjacent by design: warehousing and distribution, cold storage, and increasingly, data centers.

FCL does not have a physical office in Kansas City yet. The team is being stood up now, managed for the moment out of Chicago, as part of a deliberate expansion into a market where FCL already has active project work. That means you are getting in on the ground floor of a new region, backed by the full weight of an 11-office national platform, rather than inheriting someone else's playbook.

Depending on the project, this role will carry a real travel component, and FCL is upfront about that: some assignments run largely from a home office, others require sustained onsite presence for data center builds with a rotating schedule between the job site and home.

FCL is 100 percent employee-owned. The people running projects here have an actual stake in how the company performs, not a distant shareholder or private equity owner counting the upside. Build a project at FCL and you're building something the company, and its people, genuinely own.

FCL has hired good PMs straight out of large general contractor competitors who were simply worn down chasing mega projects with no end in sight. FCL is deliberate about not doing that. At roughly 250 people across 11 offices, you're a name leadership actually knows, not a resource getting rotated through someone else's growth plan.

FCL would rather invest in a strong industrial or commercial PM and grow them into data center work than demand you already be a niche MEP specialist on day one. This is a company actively building its bench for its fastest-growing, highest-margin product line, and it will bet on the right person over the flashiest resume.

FCL Builders was founded in Chicago 50 years ago and is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. What started as a Chicago and Midwest general contractor has grown into an 11-office national, employee-owned platform, with locations including Dallas, Atlanta, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Irvine, Sacramento, Tampa, Houston, and Columbus. Across its history, FCL has completed more than 1,200 projects and built over 625 million square feet of industrial space nationwide, with a 97 percent customer retention rate.

Everything FCL builds is big-box or big-box-adjacent. The company's bread and butter is industrial distribution and warehousing; roughly a decade ago it built a specialty in cold storage construction, work it continues today for clients like Dot Foods; and over the past five years it has expanded into data center construction, growing alongside enterprise clients such as Edged. FCL does not build high-rises, apartments, or bridges.

Projects are staffed as cross-functional "One FCL" teams rather than siloed by region, so a relationship that starts in one market gets supported by expertise from across the company.

FCL is employee-owned and intentionally stays small and nimble, with roughly 250 people across its 11 offices. That size means everyone, including project executives, is expected to roll up their sleeves, and it is also why FCL has walked away from technically strong candidates who did not fit the culture, preferring to develop someone with the right attitude over a flawless resume.

Every new hire outside Chicago is flown into FCL's headquarters for an immersive three-day orientation covering company history and culture, a job site visit, introductions to the project teams and leadership, and social time with the broader team, so no one starts on an island.

Pre-Construction & Scope: Read and own the owner's contract, develop the written project scope and budget, and stay engaged through design review milestones, RFIs, and pre-construction planning with the design team.

Schedule & Budget Ownership: Build the critical path schedule, coordinate subcontractor buyout and…