SAN DIEGO—When tackling a time-sensitive buildout, working within a tenant's lease constraints can be challenging, Pacific Building Group's president Jim Roherty tells GlobeSt.com. The firm has been hired to complete a buildout for Renovate America, a San Diego company that helps homeowners make qualified home energy and efficiency improvements. Currently in two offices, Renovate America, creator of the HERO® Program, has signed a seven-year lease on a 160,000-square-foot space in the Rancho Vista Corporate Center in Rancho Bernardo.

Landlord Swift Real Estate Partners is spending approximately $12 million on the building's interior space and $6.6 million on the construction of an additional 10,000-square-foot café building and other improvements. PBG will complete the interior buildout and an adjacent 10,000-square-foot building for the company's 670 employees. Joining the 33-year-old general contracting firm is architect Gensler.

In addition, PBG will serve as general contractor for a 63,000-square-foot medical-building project in El Centro, CA, to be developed by Pacific Medical Buildings. Construction will begin early this summer and serve tenants Clinicas and Imperial Valley Family Care Medical Group. PBG will coordinate all pre-construction, scheduling, cost control and communication efforts for the project, collaborating with Pacific 33 Architects Inc., Nadel Architecture and Javier Diaz Architects. In addition to the two-story building, the facility will include an 8,000-square-foot ambulatory-surgery center and 405 parking spaces. The exterior will showcase tilt-up concrete panels and glass materials as well as sunshades and a large welcoming walkway.

El Centro medical-building project rendering

The Renovate America buildout is expected to be complete later this year. We spoke with Roherty about the project and how his firm approaches construction for time-sensitive buildouts.

GlobeSt.com: What do you anticipate to be unique about the Renovate America buildout as compared to your other projects?

Roherty: It's very time sensitive. They are coming out of a lease and are a rapidly expanding company with a lease that's expiring. That's probably the biggest challenge on the project—the time frame is very aggressive. We're taking a building that was occupied by Hewlett Packard for a long time (20 to 25 years) and now putting a new tenant in the middle of that campus. That creates some unique challenges as it relates to infrastructure and tying into the existing utilities within the campus.

GlobeSt.com: How are you approaching the construction?

Roherty: We have a very strong team among the construction management, architect and contractor. Everyone is working together. We were hired a few months ago, well prior to the project starting, and everybody has worked together to understand the needs of the owner to meet end dates. There are two parts to this project: a large, tenant-improvement buildout and the addition of a cafeteria/amenities building. Work on the cafeteria building will start in the middle of April. Renovate America provides meals for all their employees, plus this facility will feature meeting rooms and collaboration rooms within the tenant space. The biggest amenity is the cafeteria—that's roughly a 10,000-square-foot building, so it's a real building.

GlobeSt.com: Have you built for tenants like this before?

Roherty: Yes. This is mainly a large servicing center where they'll have a lot of customer-service reps working with their customers in providing funding for solar upgrades and things like that. This is the service center that provides the customer service for those customers.

GlobeSt.com: What else is unique about this project?

Roherty: It's three floors, and the unique challenge is we will have them occupying one floor while we're working on the others; that's how we'll pick up time. It's a 150,000-square-foot. buildout on three floors and some exterior skin renovation to the existing building.

The Renovate America buildout is expected to be complete later this year. We spoke with Roherty about the project and how his firm approaches construction for time-sensitive buildouts.

GlobeSt.com: What do you anticipate to be unique about the Renovate America buildout as compared to your other projects?

GlobeSt.com: How are you approaching the construction?

GlobeSt.com: Have you built for tenants like this before?

GlobeSt.com: What else is unique about this project?

Instant Insights /

Accomplishing a Time-Sensitive Buildout

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