ENGINEERED TO LAST. DESIGNED TO IMPRESS.

Turnkey metal building solutions that save schedules,
beat budgets, and exceed expectations

YOUR PROJECT. OUR KNOW-HOW.

For 45 years, Reich Construction LLC has been one of the few design-build firms in the country where a licensed architect leads every project from day one.

We specialize in pre-engineered steel buildings for commercial and industrial applications, combining design intelligence with construction expertise to deliver turnkey solutions that are faster, smarter, and built last.

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Prefabricated Steel Buildings – Commercial Steel Building Contractors DC, MD, VA, Nationwide

We Handle The Full Metal Building Construction Cycle From Design, To Permitting, To Construction

We design and erect pre-engineered metal buildings for clients throughout the US. After 40 years and thousands of metal building projects, we have systems in place to ensure your pre-engineered steel building is a success.

From pre-fab steel buildings for schools and grow houses, to custom designed steel buildings for the automotive industry, retail outlets, agricultural, storage facilities, and more, we design and install commercial metal and steel buildings anywhere in the country.

From the local permitting for custom steel buildings, to the budgeting guidance, right through design, full steel building construction, and completion, we manage each and every step of the process.

As an architect-led steel building design & construction fIrm, we work with clients across all industry spectrums to deliver structures to meet their exact needs, from warehouses and grow houses, to medical clinics, multi-use sports complexes and office buildings to one-of-a-kind retreat centers and glass enclosed houses of worship – no matter what your location in the U.S. we handle every step from permitting, to design and completion.

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See Us At Work Around the Country

Architect-Led Steel Building Design & Construction in all 50 States

This week we're wrapping up a 30x40 light gauge steel utility building on a small farm in Mount Airy. The structure is built entirely from roll-formed shapes: 14" wide, 11-gauge roll-form channels at the door openings and corners, doubled up to form the main frame columns, with matching roll-form beams and knee braces at the ceiling. Wall girts are 4" roll-formed Z-sections, which is notably shallower than the 8" girts you'd find on a conventional PEMB, while the roof purlins run the standard 8" depth you'd expect for a building this size. Rounding it out is a simple mezzanine framed from 6" Z-shaped roll-form purlins with a ¾" CDX plywood deck on top — an inexpensive way to pick up usable storage without a complicated structure. Roll-formed shapes come off a single machine in the factory, making them faster and less expensive to produce than the welded plate assemblies used in conventional pre-engineered steel. A standard PEMB column is built up from a web and two flanges made of quarter to half-inch plate steel, continuously welded and tapered to match the load diagram. Light gauge skips all of that. For a building in the 1,000 to 3,000 square foot range, that tradeoff makes sense. For anything approaching 10,000 square feet or more, we'd steer you toward a conventional PEMB due to the demand on the loads and spans.
Reich Construction - Cold Formed Metal Building Erection in Mount Airy MD
This week we're out in Union Bridge, Maryland working on an old Butler Farmstead building from the 1960s. It's a 40x36 structure with a 12-foot eave, about as elemental as a pre-engineered steel building gets: a main frame every 12 feet, roll-formed Z-shaped purlins at 5-foot spacing, and Butler's signature rib panel on the outside. Sixty-plus years later, the structure is sound. The panel held up. And with a re-roof and new insulation, this building is looking at another 50 to 60 years of service life. The re-roof spec starts with WMP-50 vinyl-faced fiberglass insulation going in over the existing framing, followed by new Galvalume panels on the roof. Galvalume costs significantly less than painted panel, lasts just as long, and on a roof where no one sees it, the tradeoff is straightforward. The existing wall panels are staying, and Butler still manufactures that same rib profile today, now with a Kynar 500 / Hylar 5000 PVDF finish that resists chalking, fading, cracking, and splitting and carries a 25-year warranty. In practice, you'll get closer to 50. These buildings were built to last, and with the right maintenance and re-cladding, they do exactly that.
Reich Construction - Metal Building Reroof in Union Bridge, MD
This week we're looking at a detail that doesn't get enough attention: the concrete wainscot on a 6,000 square foot shop building. Most PEMB siding — R-panel, Stylwall, FW-120 — is the right call for cost and speed, but in industrial and work environments, metal siding takes a beating at ground level. A concrete wainscot is a smart upgrade, and this one is a good example of how to do it right. The best decision made here was sizing the wainscot to match the width of the wall girts, typically 8" to 8½" depending on the manufacturer, so the concrete face sits flush with the steel framing behind it. That alignment makes insulation straightforward and eliminates the need for custom flashings. Detailing a brick veneer or oversized wainscot that projects beyond the girt line sounds minor until the concrete isn't perfectly plumb; then you're fabricating custom cap flashings to cover a wall that doesn't quite meet the steel above it. There's also a saw cut visible at one of the overhead door openings where the rough opening came in off-dimension. This is a common issue, since concrete simply doesn't hold the tolerances steel does. The one weak point on this build is the base flashing, which is already deflecting and leaving gaps at the bottom of the siding — the right flashing for this condition returns back under the siding panel and seals the joint properly.
Reich Construction - Metal Building Concrete Wainscot in Cloquet, MN
This week's footage speaks for itself. What you're watching is the payoff of a method we've been developing at our own shop: framing the entire roof assembly on the ground, then lifting it into place in a single crane pick. A rigger guides the structure as the crane moves, making fine adjustments before the roof is set onto its posts and welded permanently into position. No man lifts. No framing at height. Just a cleaner, safer, more controlled installation. This is a trial run — intentionally. We're building the process here at the shop so our crews are comfortable executing it before we bring it to client projects. The benefits carry over whether the roof is conventional steel or pre-engineered: better accuracy, lower equipment costs, and the ability to install insulation and soffit on the ground before the roof ever goes up.
Reich Construction - Modularized Roof Installation in Columbia, MD
This week we're expanding our own office, a custom steel structure framed entirely from surplus material left over from previous jobs. The main columns are 8x8x⅜" HSS tube steel, the secondary columns and floor framing are wide flange, and the floor is a poured-in-place concrete slab with Nelson studs welded to the steel framing and #5 rebar at 12" on center each way. The exterior is clad in 3" insulated metal panels, delivering roughly R-21 and going up fast, clean, and with a finished interior appearance right out of the box. One of the more distinctive choices on this build is how we're handling the roof. Rather than framing it in place at height, we built the entire roof assembly on the ground — all main framing, purlins, and sub-framing — then welded six lift lugs into the structure. A crane with two spreader bars and six chain hoists will lift it to pitch and set it directly onto the six posts below. It's safer, more precise, and doesn't require expensive elevated equipment to frame. That's the kind of thinking that comes from building the same way you'd want someone to build for you.
Reich Construction - Surplus Steel Office Expansion in Columbia, MD
This week we're back in Palm Beach Gardens. The building is nearly complete, but a rafter beam was discovered with a bent bottom flange, likely the result of an impact after installation. The owner wasn't willing to accept a partial repair, requiring the entire beam to be removed and replaced. This is a procedure we don't take lightly, and one that has to be engineered correctly from the start to avoid compromising the rest of the structure. This kind of repair is where decades of field experience matter most. Our team built a full shoring system using salvaged jobsite steel to support the purlins, designed a temporary column with blocking to carry the load while the beam is out, and deployed three telehandlers and two man lifts to maneuver the beam safely and work both ends simultaneously. We've seen other contractors attempt this kind of repair without proper engineering and end up with a sagging or collapsing roof. Knowing how steel behaves under real-world stress isn't something you learn from a manual — it's something you earn over 45 years in the field.
Reich Construction - Metal Building Beam Replacement in Palm Beach Gardens, FL
We're back in Cloquet, Minnesota, at a landfill facility we've highlighted previously. Located near the Canadian border, this region presents some of the most challenging construction conditions in the country. Even in mid-June, the weather can be unpredictable, with constant high winds and conditions that often feel more like winter than summer. Earlier this year, another contractor attempted to reroof this building during the depths of winter, working through temperatures ranging from 20°F to -20°F, frequent snowfall, and relentless wind. Unfortunately, those conditions made it extremely difficult to achieve a proper installation, and the roof continued to leak after the work was completed. The primary issue involved the sealing system used beneath the exposed-fastener R-panel roofing. Every roof panel and trim component requires mastic sealant to create a watertight connection. In the extreme cold, portions of the mastic failed to bond properly, allowing water to infiltrate the building and saturate sections of insulation. Reich Construction was brought in to correct the problem. We've replaced the ridge cap, gutters, downspouts, and rake trim, while systematically resealing the roof. Rather than removing the entire roof system to replace the damaged insulation, we've developed a more practical solution. The wet insulation will be removed from below, replaced with environmentally friendly fiberglass insulation, and finished with a reflective foil-faced insulation system beneath the purlins. The result will be improved thermal performance, a cleaner interior appearance, and a long-term solution that avoids the expense of tearing off a newly installed roof.
Reich Construction - Metal Building Reroof in Cloquet, MN
This week, we're erecting a 30x40 light gauge steel shop building. What should have been a straightforward scope on paper turned into a case study in why experience matters. The owner purchased a pre-engineered package through a sales organization that sourced the steel from one manufacturer and the engineering from another. By the time the package arrived on site, we had three incomplete, non-coordinating drawing sets and part numbers that didn't match what was on the ground. Our crew did what 45 years of experience prepares you for: we laid out the parts, took our own dimensions, and figured it out. Beyond the drawing issues, the engineered anchor bolt spec called for 3½" wedge anchors to hold the columns down — something we recognized immediately as insufficient. Wind uplift on light buildings can exceed the vertical snow load, and wedge anchors simply aren't enough to hold a frame in a storm. We replaced them with 16" epoxy-set anchors tied into a monolithic, rebar-reinforced slab. For this building to leave its foundation, it would have to take the entire foundation with it. We also flagged that no insulation had been ordered, a critical omission that would have caused condensation problems on the underside of the metal roof every summer.
Reich Construction - Cold-Formed Steel Building Erection in Mt. Airy, MD
This week we’re in Palm City, Florida, looking at the aftermath of a tornado that destroyed an arch-style building we were helping construct for a local wildlife center. The structure was a modified arch building—a modern variation of the classic Quonset hut—made from curved Galvalume steel panels that form both the walls and roof with minimal structural framing. The building measured approximately 50 feet wide by 155 feet long and was partially erected when Hurricane Milton crossed Florida. While the building was still under construction, a tornado spun off from the storm system and touched down directly at the project site. The damage illustrates the difference between designing for hurricane winds and surviving a direct tornado strike. The tornado lifted the structure from its foundations, twisted the building, and threw it into the nearby tree line. In several locations, anchor bolts were bent, broken, or pulled apart as the building was lifted from the slab. While building codes establish minimum wind-resistance requirements that become more stringent in Florida's higher wind zones, tornadoes can generate forces that exceed what most conventional structures are designed to withstand. This project serves as a powerful reminder of both the importance of proper wind engineering and the limits of what any building can reasonably be expected to survive during an extreme tornado event.
Reich Construction - Uncommon Types of Metal Buildings in Palm City, FL
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