Harrisburg building maintenance franchise posts strong opening year

After launching last November, City Wide of Central Pennsylvania now has nearly 50 buildings in the region under management and about $1.2 million in revenue.

“We’re adding about five buildings per month,” said Alan Matheson, who opened the local franchise office with his wife, Naila.

The couple has picked up building accounts representing a variety of industries, including car dealerships, medical facilities and factories. And the work has been spread across the midstate — from Carlisle, Harrisburg and Hershey to Lancaster and York.

City Wide, which is based in Kansas City, bills itself as a single-source solution for building maintenance needs. The business model aims to centralize service providers and leave building owners with a single monthly bill, which can save them time and money.

The franchise also helps small service providers find new streams of monthly business, Matheson said. “We’re not competition to the small cleaning companies.”

In fact, City Wide is able to chase sales leads that those small companies may not have time or resources to go after because they usually work nights cleaning buildings.

City Wide makes connections to building owners and the service companies take care of the work, which ranges from interior cleaning services, painting projects and security work to parking lot and lawn maintenance. 

The independent service companies will get paid directly by City Wide. For most janitorial services, there are industry accepted monthly rates based on the size of buildings and number of cleaning visits per week. City Wide receives a percentage of that fee for getting the job and the rest is paid to the service company.

Using handyman services as an example, the local standard fee might be $40 per hour. If a client calls City Wide in need of a small building repair, Matheson may have partners willing to pick up extra work for $30 per hour. However, his client would still pay $40 to City Wide.

For some services, City Wide will solicit quotes from multiple companies and then present the best price to the client with its management fee built in.

To date, the local City Wide franchise has established relationships with 18 commercial cleaning companies, Matheson said. 

City Wide has grown to five employees in Harrisburg. With continued growth in the number of building accounts, Matheson said his second-year goal is $2.5 million in revenue.