CBG Building Company

CBG Building Company is a multifamily general contractor founded in 1996 and headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. It concentrates almost entirely on residential and mixed-use work, which is unusual for a firm of its size and gives it real depth in podium and wood-frame construction, high-density urban infill and the phasing problems that come with occupied or partially occupied buildings. The company is the builder on Renley, Gilbane Development Company’s 121,200-square-foot office-to-residential conversion at 3601 Wilson Boulevard in Arlington, one of the first projects entitled under Arlington County’s Adaptive Reuse Site Plan Amendment. CBG also builds student housing, senior living and affordable housing, and operates from offices across the Mid-Atlantic, Southeast and Texas.

The corporate lineage behind CBG runs further back than the multifamily brand suggests. George Hyman began construction operations in Washington, DC in 1906. OMNI Construction was created in 1977 to serve merit shop demand, OMNI Residential was formed in 1992 for the District’s growing multifamily need, and Clark Realty Builders emerged from the 1996 Hyman-OMNI merger. The portfolio that came out of that chain now stands at roughly 128,000 homes.

Geography is broader than a Mid-Atlantic label implies. CBG runs regional offices in Washington DC, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Tampa, Dallas, San Diego, Los Angeles and Monterey, giving it coverage on both coasts and in Texas and the Southeast.

The capability set includes several things most multifamily general contractors do not advertise. Panelized and off-site construction is a stated line of business, and CBG completed its first proprietary light-gauge steel project at the University of South Florida in 13 months back in 2015. Public-private partnerships are another: the firm entered military housing in 2002 through the multi-state, $737 million San Diego Family Housing community, and in 2011 built the Wounded Warrior Home Project, two prototype houses focused on human-centered design. Preconstruction, design-build and sustainable design round out the offering.

The green building track record is unusually deep for a residential builder. Clark Realty Builders completed The Blair Towns in 2003, the first LEED-certified residential project in the United States, followed in 2008 by the military’s first LEED Platinum new construction at Fort Belvoir. UC Davis West Village, started in 2018, was the largest student housing and net-zero community in the country at the time. By 2022 the firm had passed 25 million square feet of LEED construction, and in 2023 it signed Hillandale Gateway, Maryland’s first Passive House community.

Safety is worth a line of its own for owners screening bidders: CBG reached 16 consecutive ABC STEP Awards at the Diamond level in 2024.

Sector coverage spans market-rate multifamily and mixed-use, renovation and adaptive reuse, hospitality, student housing, senior living, affordable and military. Recent activity includes One Rangers Way in Arlington, Texas, a 100 percent affordable community, single-soldier housing at Fort Irwin, and vertical construction at 1901 North Moore Street. The company has been named a Washington Post Top Workplace three years running and earned a first regional honor from the Tampa Bay Times.