Tried and True: Why Bow Valley Businesses Keep Coming Back to ACS

For small business owners, choosing a commercial construction company can be stressful. After all, finding a company that can bring your vision to life while working within your budget and your timeline isn’t always easy. Testimonials and reviews are valuable, but there’s another way to vet a construction company’s reputation — you just have to find out how many clients come back for a second time.

Ashton Construction Services (ACS) is proud of its long list of repeat clients. Since 2014, the company has completed over 150 projects across the Bow Valley, and many of them are second, third, and fourth jobs for the same local businesses.

Steve Ashton is ACS’s founder and CEO. If you ask him why clients return, his answer is as sensible as it is succinct: “Because we treat every project like it’s the one that earns the next one.”

Building a Local Landmark

Beamer’s Coffee Bar is a great example of how that ethos can play out. The coffee company has been a local icon since 1994, when Michael Beamer and Darren Boucher opened the original shop on Bow Valley Trail.

“This was right at the beginning of when coffee culture was starting to explode,” says Steve. “It was the first coffee bar to open in Canmore, back in the day when it was an internet café, where you had an espresso as you’re checking your email.”

In 2019, the café secured a spot at The Shops of Canmore, partnering with ACS on the build. The project was 2,200 square feet, with a budget of $427,000.

Looking back, there’s one detail that stands out most for Steve: ACS was finishing the café’s interior while the building’s landlord was still constructing the base building around it. Instead of waiting, the team roughed in the space early and had the interior done before the town had even issued the occupancy permit.

“We were there, we were helpful, and we got it done,” says Steve. “As soon as the town signed off on The Shops of Canmore and it was ready to open, well, Beamer’s was ready to open too. And as soon as they started paying rent, there was cash flowing.”

ACS’s commitment to the timeline was obvious. But paying attention to the company’s other needs was important too. “We treated that job with the same rigour we would bring to a multimillion dollar build,” says Steve. “Clear communication, no surprises on budgets, and we hit the schedule they needed.”

Back for More

After that first project with Beamer’s, the coffee company wasn’t shy about telling people how happy they were with the build. Their referrals helped fill about a dozen more projects in the Shops of Canmore over the next couple of years. ACS also worked with Beamer’s again when the café added a heated, enclosed patio.

“What brought them back to us was trust,” says Steve. “Last time they did expansion renovations, they didn’t even bother getting any other quotes. They knew what they were getting with us — so they just came to us.”

Soon, ACS will partner with Beamer’s on another location in Three Sisters Mountain Village, in an area with a grocery store, gas bar, liquor store, dental and doctor’s offices. This new coffee bar will have a newer interior design style — Steve calls it “mountain modern.” But everything else will be the same, from the baked-on-site muffins to the freshly ground coffee.

“The cool thing about this one is that my wife, Jessie Ashton at Nest Design and Drafting Studio, and her colleague at Moss Interior Design are designing it,” says Steve. “They wanted us to fully turnkey this project because they know that we have a connection when it comes to designing, building, permitting, and engineering.”

Building on Trust

Beamer’s isn’t the only client that keeps coming back. Rocky Mountain Soap Company hired ACS in 2014 to turn a 24,000-square-foot building into its factory and head office. Then the company kept calling — for soap workshop upgrades, a rooftop patio, store renovations in Banff and Canmore, and a hand sanitizer facility. The ACS team has managed more than ten construction projects for them, every one delivered on time and on budget.

Eclipse Coffee Roasters has built three cafés with ACS since 2019. Wild Life Distillery came back years after the first project to build a second distillery with ten times the production capacity. ACS built Mountain Animal Hospital’s first building, and when the company moved to a much bigger space a few years later, ACS built that too. Ashton Construction Services has grown during that time, too, but the customer experience hasn’t changed.

“Our clients know that the baseline of what we provide is the same,” says Steve. “The trust is the same, the honesty is the same.”

Builds that Last

It only makes sense to bring a builder back for a new job if the last one held up. Steve is candid about the fact that not every space ages the same way. A café ringing through hundreds of orders a day takes a beating no builder can prevent, and maintenance matters too. What ACS controls is the quality of the initial build.

Château Mountain Sports shows how that effort pays off over time. The outdoor store and rental shop was built five or six years ago — and it still looks almost new. That’s partly because the owner is in the store every day to maintain it. The rest comes down to decisions that were made during that initial build.

“They don’t have to rip apart drywall to upgrade a wire,” says Steve. “They can just pull new wire through the conduit that’s running through the walls. We also ran flooring under the millwork, so when things get damaged, they don’t have to replace the flooring in the whole store.”

ACS’s other builds from that era have held up well, too. Rocket Pie Pizza in the Shops of Canmore still looks great, and so does the Valbella Gourmet Foods. The exterior renovation at Fergus & Bix holds its finish years later, too.

“These small projects are still performing exactly as they should,” says Steve. “We haven’t received any callbacks, we had limited deficiencies, and there are no structural issues. That’s not an accident. Our smaller work ages just as well as our big work because it gets the same quality control, the same trade partners, the same attention to detail.”

Radical Transparency

Clients often come back because with ACS, they always know where a project stands. “We pride ourselves on our open communication and our humility,” says Steve. “We don’t pretend we have answers when we don’t. We just tell them we’ll look into it and find an answer.”

Budget is part of that, too. Most of the time, ACS gives a client a number and hits it. If something unexpected comes up, the client knows about it as soon as ACS does — and they’re kept in the loop every step of the way. That approach also lets owners keep running their business while ACS focuses on the build.

ACS also treats small renovations as seriously as a flagship build. “A lot of contractors chase the big projects and treat smaller work like an afterthought,” says Steve. “We don’t, and that’s often what earns the next call.”

Community Commitment

ACS team members run into their clients at the grocery store, the hockey rink, and local events. That means they have to stand behind their work — and it gives the company a chance to build its reputation in the Bow Valley over a longer period of time.

“We’re not just chasing the next job in another market,” says Steve. “We’re building our reputation with the same people over and over. We’re also not driving from Calgary, so we have faster response times.”

So when a client needs a quick fix, their solution is always just a few minutes away.

Looking for a local construction partner who will take your small build as seriously as its biggest projects? Contact ACS to learn more about its commitment to quality, clear communication, and results that last.

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