// COMPANY DOSSIER
Marco Group Limited
Atlantic Canada's largest general contractor, delivering commercial, healthcare, education, multi-residential, recreational and light-industrial projects as general contractor, construction manager, design-builder and P3 partner.
📍 St. John's, NL, CanadaEst. 1979✓ 100% first-party verified
// CLIPS FROM Marco Group Limited
“with the labor shortage we don't need 10 guys to go into a roof we only need four to five”
“the reason that we never really got approached or never got unionized”
“how do you build people well you have to put them on a pathway of success”
“there's been a couple of buildings that burnt because they were using torches”
“so like when we start the job we fill out the warranty if we're doing a total system warranty”
“we've really haven't been bidding the tendered stuff as much anymore”
“sort of like the Vegas Knights you take all the Misfits and championship team”
“one of the things we did at the hospital we brought in a mini crane”
“I have an uncle that I'm very close to he's a top foreman for ATEC New Brunswick”
// LESSONS FROM Marco Group Limited
Join the union once you already exceed their standards — let them run the benefits and training infrastructure you were building anyway.
Entering a trade niche with a single product system (no alternatives) forces focus and builds genuine expertise faster than trying to compete across all formats.
Spend two years working budgets and details with a GC before a tender is issued — early engagement converts relationships into awarded contracts on large complex jobs.
Cross-train roofing and cladding crews so they can shift between scopes — it extends your employment year to 12 months and creates a more flexible, loyal workforce.
Single-ply roofing requires roughly half the crew of torch-on two-ply for equivalent coverage — in a labour shortage, the system that needs fewer people wins.
Avoid racing to the bottom on school tenders — thin margins and government specs combine to make schools consistently unprofitable for specialty subcontractors.
// SELECTED PROJECTS
MUN Core Science Facility
CompletedGeneral contractor / builder · 42,000 sq. metres; ~$325M global project budget
Main building construction April 2017–August 2021, completed on budget (confirmed by Memorial University and CBC). The $325M figure is the project's global budget per MUN, not Marco's contract value alone.
Western Memorial Regional Hospital (Corner Brook Acute Care Hospital)
CompletedDesign-builder, joint venture with PCL Constructors Canada Inc. (Corner Brook Health Partnership) · ~$750M P3 contract (design-build-finance-maintain, full partnership)
Construction completed/handed over November 2023 per Government of NL, Plenary and PCL; Marco's own project page still labels it in-progress (stale). Seven-storey, 164-bed hospital connected to a 145-bed long-term care facility. The ~$750M is the whole CBHP P3 partnership value, not Marco's GC scope alone.
Glace Bay Area PP-5 School & Northside Middle School
AwardedDesign-builder (collaborative design-build) with Harvey Architecture
Awarded/announced March 23, 2026; collaborative design-build model. No public contract value disclosed.
// KEY PEOPLE
TH
CH
AM
RA
JS
CT
// NOTABLE
Founded in St. John's, NL in 1979 by Tom Hickman, who led senior management and staff from Newfoundland Engineering and Construction Company (NECCO) to establish the firm; remains a family business with the Hickman family.
SOURCE ▸Named one of Canada's Best Managed Companies (Deloitte); the company states it retained Best Managed status for a fifth consecutive year in 2024.
SOURCE ▸Built the 11-storey Bank of Nova Scotia building (completed 1984), at the time the tallest building in St. John's, and opened its Halifax-area (Dartmouth) office in 2003.
SOURCE ▸