iSqFt made the plan room bigger

In 1996, a small Ohio software company had a useful trick. It could measure a blueprint on a computer screen. For a roofing estimator, this promised a shorter route from drawing to quantities. There was a catch: electronic blueprints were scarce. The tool could handle a future that its customers could not yet reliably get hold of.

That awkward gap is the beginning of the interesting iSqFt story. Construction Software Technologies had built an estimating product. The opportunity was becoming the place where contractors could find and share the material that made estimating possible.

• The job: get construction plans, opportunities, and bid invitations to the people who need them.
• The turn: move from a measurement tool toward an online document and contractor network.
• The present: iSqFt remains a general-contractor product within ConstructConnect, alongside a separate migration path for subcontractors.

A good tool, waiting for its raw material

Phil Ogilby and his son Justin founded the business in 1993, initially serving commercial roofing and sheet metal. Buildware Pro arrived three years later, supporting both paper-plan digitizers and electronic drawings. By 2000, the company was turning toward online services under the iSqFt name.

The lesson is unusually portable. When customers cannot use your product, inspect what they need immediately before it. In iSqFt’s case, access to drawings was a constraint on the usefulness of measurement software. The response widened the business from handling a document to helping distribute it.

The association was part of the product

A conventional plan room required a visit. Contractors inspected drawings and specifications in a physical location. An online room could make those documents available without the journey. For members scattered across a large territory, the saving began before anyone opened an estimating spreadsheet.

In March 2001, the Associated General Contractors of America endorsed iSqFt after a financial and performance review. Participating chapters could bring existing local construction communities into the service. Here was a useful combination: software that could distribute drawings, and an association already connected to the people who needed them.

“iSqFt has streamlined and improved our entire bid process.”

Ed Wenz · Reno Contracting · historical customer testimonial

An invitation is the beginning

The historical product had two complementary doors. The Private Construction Office let general contractors distribute plans, specifications, and addenda while controlling access project by project. The Internet Plan Room gave subcontractors, suppliers, and estimators round-the-clock access to publicly bidding projects.

Think of an estimator deciding whether a job deserves an afternoon. A project name helps. Drawings help more. Specifications reveal the work; addenda change it. The contractor needs enough information to decide, then a dependable way to communicate that decision. iSqFt organized those steps around the bid.

The estimating thread survived. A 2010 iSqFt Takeoff brochure described point-and-click area, length, and count measurements, overlays for comparing revisions, and quantity exports to Microsoft Office. The documents and the measuring tool now belonged to the same practical conversation.

Buying the network

iSqFt expanded through combinations as well as software. Genstar brought it together with BidClerk in 2014. Franklin Square announced a secured loan in 2015 supporting the acquisitions of BidClerk and CDC Publishing. A CMD combination followed that year. In 2016, the businesses came together under the ConstructConnect name.

Roper’s subsequent filing put the purchase price at $631 million for the combined business. The attraction is understandable: project information brought people into the system, and bidding gave them a reason to return. Each acquisition could add data, relationships, or another piece of the workflow.

The 2014 exit announcement from investor River Cities adds another wrinkle. It reported more than elevenfold growth during its investment period, despite a construction downturn. That is the investor’s account of a particular holding period, rather than a forecast. Still, it helps explain why the business attracted buyers: tools for finding work could matter even when there was less work around.

The old name still has a job

Today, ConstructConnect markets iSqFt for General Contractors with private directories, bid messaging, and prequalification. It documents connections with Procore and On-Screen Takeoff. That puts iSqFt in the coordination layer of preconstruction: finding bidders, distributing information, and preparing the next handoff.

The subcontractor experience has a different signpost. Official migration instructions direct upgraded users to ConstructConnect, where their iSqFt invitations appear in Bid Center. The free version organizes invited projects; paid access adds discovery and fuller bidder information. A familiar email invitation can therefore lead into a different application.

BuildingConnected, Dodge Construction Network, and PlanHub occupy overlapping territory in bidding or project discovery. iSqFt’s distinctive history combines local plan-room relationships with documents, project leads, and bidder coordination. Buyers should compare the actual handoffs their teams perform.

One small feature makes the coordination problem tangible. Contractors can place a project plan room and a subcontractor registration form on their own websites. A bidder can ask to join the private directory; the contractor reviews the request. The software makes an existing business relationship easier to administer, without requiring that every contact begin as a stranger in a giant database.

Price the work you can pursue

The broader ConstructConnect Professional data plan currently starts at $199 a month per market, per seat, with an annual contract. That is a project-data price, separate from an iSqFt general-contractor bid-management quote. Geography, documents, and seats all belong in the comparison.

A sensible evaluation starts with recent jobs in your territory. Are the relevant trades represented? Are the drawings usable? Do invitations produce responses? A national network total cannot answer those local questions. A team with little suitable commercial work, or no capacity to pursue more bids, has less reason to pay for additional leads.

There is something pleasingly concrete about the original insight. Before asking an estimator to measure faster, help that estimator get the plans. Anyone building software can copy the question: what is missing from the customer’s desk before our product becomes useful?