Why Paul Leongas Self-Performs Construction and What That Actually Means
Paul Leongas headshot
In commercial real estate development, the general contractor is the default. You buy a property, hire a GC, and pay them to manage the build. The GC hires subcontractors, marks up their invoices 10 to 20 percent, and manages the schedule. It is how the industry works. Paul Leongas looked at that model and walked away from it.
Through Axis Development Group LLC in Park Ridge, Illinois, Paul self-performs construction. He and his team handle demolition, framing, rough mechanical coordination, finish work, and inspection management. No GC in the middle. No markup on markup. No third party between the developer and the people doing the actual work.
The term gets thrown around loosely in the industry, so it is worth explaining what self-performing actually means in practice. It does not mean Paul Leongas does every task with his own hands. It means he directly manages and coordinates the work that on a typical project would be managed by a general contractor. He hires specialty subcontractors where licensing requires it, such as plumbing and electrical, but he manages them directly. He sets the schedule. He conducts the inspections. He makes the on-site decisions that on a GC-managed project would be made by someone who does not own the building and does not care about it the same way.
The difference shows up in three places: cost, speed, and quality.
Cost is the obvious one. A general contractor’s fee on a mid-scale commercial buildout can run $40,000 to $80,000 depending on scope. On top of that, GCs mark up every subcontractor invoice, every material purchase, and every change order. By self-performing, Paul Leongas keeps that money in the build. It goes into better mechanical systems, better finishes, or it stays in the budget as margin. Either way, it does not go to someone whose primary job is making phone calls and forwarding emails.
Speed matters because commercial tenants start paying rent on a schedule, not when the space is ready. Every week a buildout runs late is a week the tenant is paying for a space they cannot use, or a week the developer is carrying costs without income. Paul manages trades directly. When the plumber is late, he knows that morning, not three days later when the GC returns an email. When a material delivery gets delayed, he adjusts the schedule the same day instead of waiting for a formal change order. Problems get solved the day they surface because the person who finds them is the person authorized to fix them.
Quality is where Paul's background makes the biggest difference. He spent more than 25 years operating a restaurant at locations across the Chicago area. He has lived in commercial spaces that were built cheaply. He has dealt with HVAC systems that could not handle summer loads, electrical panels that tripped under normal restaurant use, and plumbing that backed up because somebody undersized a drain line to save $200. Paul Leongas does not build that way. Every Axis project gets systems specced for actual use, not minimum code compliance.
His commercial portfolio across Chicago's North Shore is managed with the same tenant-first approach.
Self-performing is not for every developer. It requires trade knowledge, daily on-site presence, and the willingness to own every problem personally. But for the tenants who end up in an Axis-built space, the difference between a self-performed buildout and a GC-managed one is obvious the first time something does not break.