J. L. Dunn & Company

J.L. Dunn & Company works the kind of job most builders avoid: old buildings that have to become something else. Its Procore profile describes a woman-owned general contractor focused on adaptive reuse, historical renovation and preservation, and tenant fit-outs around Greater Boston, certified both as a Disadvantaged Business and as a Women's Business Enterprise. BBB dates the corporation to August 2010 — sixteen years. The permit trail is commercial in character. BuildZoom counts 13 permitted projects, mostly renovation and roofing work on commercial and institutional buildings in Boston, Brookline, Braintree, Newton and Cambridge. Only two of those fall in the past three years, so the recent pace has been light. Then there is the licence, and it belongs at the top of your list. BuildZoom records a Massachusetts general contractor licence, #168311, that expired on 30 January 2015, and says it re-checked the number in April 2026 and found it still expired. That is why the site scores the company zero and prints a no-active-licence alert. This is BuildZoom's own record rather than a state confirmation — but for a general contractor, a licence that lapsed a decade ago is precisely the thing to settle before signing anything. Ask for the current registration number and a certificate of insurance, and verify them with the state yourself. Nobody has written publicly about working with the firm. BBB shows an A+ grade — its own complaint-handling math, not customer opinion — with no reviews or complaints on the page, and BuildZoom has none either. If you own or lease a historic building and need a fit-out or a sensitive renovation, the stated specialty here is uncommon enough to be worth a conversation. Just start that conversation with the licence question.