About
A Boise builder and developer focused on thoughtful residential work.
Fortis works across custom homes, ADUs, and small residential development, with property, design, budget, and construction considered together from the beginning.
What Fortis is
Fortis Building Co. is a Boise builder and developer working across custom homes, ADUs, and small residential development.
We stay close to the work. The projects vary in scale, from a single ADU behind an existing house to a several-lot development, but the approach does not: understand the property, define the project clearly, and make the decisions that affect design, cost, and construction before they turn into expensive problems in the field.
How we think
The important decisions come before construction.
Property, architecture, engineering, budget, constructability, and execution all affect one another. A grade change moves a foundation, a foundation moves a budget, a budget moves the design. Fortis resolves those decisions together, early, rather than treating design, pricing, and construction as separate phases handed from one party to the next.
For ADUs, that property-first approach begins with Parcept, Fortis Building Co.’s ADU feasibility platform, which helps Boise property owners understand whether an ADU may be possible before spending money on design.
Builder and developer
Fortis approaches projects from both sides of the table.
As a builder, we care about constructability: scopes, trades, sequencing, detailing, and what actually happens on site once the drawings are real.
As a developer, we care about the property: entitlement, feasibility, budget, schedule, and whether the whole project makes sense before construction begins.
The combination matters because the decisions made earliest affect everything that follows. A builder who has also carried the risk of a project reads a set of drawings differently, and a developer who has also built one draws a different site plan.
Boise
Fortis is based in Boise and works across Boise and the surrounding Treasure Valley.
Residential work is local.
- Neighborhoods
- Lots and alleys
- Grading
- Utilities
- Permitting
- Trades
- Established houses
Each of these shapes a project before the first drawing, and so does the way new construction sits among established houses. Knowing them shortens the distance between an idea and something that can be built.
We are not trying to be a regional or national builder. The value is in knowing the place where we build.
Who is behind Fortis
Ben Wakefield founded Fortis Building Co. in 2016 and serves as President.
His background spans commercial concrete, customer service, civil construction, and high-end residential building — experience that shaped a hands-on approach to both the technical and client sides of a project.
Ben remains involved in the day-to-day work of Fortis, with a focus on quality control, project execution, and customer relationships.
Have a property or project in mind?