As we cover the projects going on at two of our old buildings — 666 (now 680) Folsom and 140 New Montgomery, we frequently have the chance to chat with employees of Plant Construction.
From Demetrius Nogara, John Young, Randy DeLapp, Darwin Rodriguez, and many others, they are all such nice people, always taking the time to provide construction updates and interesting technical info, despite their very busy days.
So it was with interest that I got the chance to learn a bit more about Plant via this article today, courtesy of The Registry.
Plant Construction Executive Grows Hope
Posted on April 26, 2013 by publisher in BREAKING news, Commercial
By Sharon Simonson
The City of Hope Real Estate and Construction Council has selected Craig Allison, co-general partner of Plant Construction Co., as this year’s winner of its Spirit of Life Award. Since 1986, the Real Estate and Construction Council has raised more than $6 million for the City of Hope. Previous award recipients include Hamid Moghadam, chairman and chief executive for industrial property company Prologis Inc., and Constance Moore, president and chief executive of apartment company BRE Properties Inc. Both companies are based in San Francisco, as is Plant.
Allison, Plant president from 2002 to 2011, has overseen work to develop and renovate some of San Francisco’s signature and historic buildings including the 1898 Ferry Building, Market Street’s iconic Flood Building and the Contemporary Jewish Museum, where an historic facade by Willis Polk was joined with a new structure. The company is currently working on the Ahwahnee Hotel, an historic landmark, at Yosemite National Park.
City of Hope is an independent biomedical research, treatment and education center for cancer, diabetes and other life-threatening diseases. Located northeast of Los Angeles, the City of Hope specializes in bringing the latest medical therapies from the lab to the patient and bringing the compelling outcomes of real life to the lab.
Founded in 1913, City of Hope includes the Helford Clinical Research Hospital, multiple research institutions, and the Graduate School of Biological Sciences.
A native Californian, Allison was trained as an architect with undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of California, Berkeley. He began with Plant in 1981 as a project manager and became a principal in 1990. He has served with David Plant as general partner of Plant Construction Co. L.P. since the business was re-organized as a partnership in 1999.
What makes Plant Construction unique?
Our specialty is projects that require more than the normal amount of management, attention and involvement from the contractor. Because we are located in San Francisco and there isn’t much land, we have done a lot of renovation and a certain amount of new construction.
The clients we work for primarily need and want more from their contractors than is typical—museums, schools, real estate developers—people who are not in the construction business and don’t have or want a large, permanent construction staff. We specialize in customers rather than buildings, and the customers we have taken up do historic renovations. There is a fair amount of technical knowledge that is needed for that work. There are standards for how those buildings have to be treated and many times the clients want to secure tax credits. We know how to work with those agencies, and there are technical issues with exterior restoration and safety issues unique to existing buildings.
With an old building you have to have a corporate culture that enables you to think on your feet to adapt because once you start, it is always different from what you expect, sometimes a little and sometimes a lot. That might be the biggest piece of expertise in historic renovation—not insisting that things be the way you thought they were going to be at the beginning, because you will get nowhere.
What are some of Plant’s current projects?
We have [restoration] projects in SoMa [South of Market Street in San Francisco] at [TMG Partners’] 680 Folsom and [Wilson Meany’s] 140 New Montgomery. Also the Arthur A. Dugoni School of Dentistry for the University of the Pacific at 155 Fifth St. Those are three of the largest projects right now, and those are clients we do a lot of work for. We are also doing pre-construction for the new Berkeley Art Museum [& Pacific Film Archive].
What is the most crucial work responsibility you have today?
Maintaining the culture of Plant. Between [co-general partner] David Plant and me, that is our most important job outside of the day-to-day demands of meeting deadlines and production goals. If you don’t have the culture, you become very average, and the larger you are, the harder it is to stay above the mean. I’m not sure that we are doing it, but we are conscious of it.
The thing that I think makes us different is that we have almost 100 percent of the people here—200 or more at the moment—who all get it. It is remarkably consistent from the labor foreman in the field to the executives in the office. They all share the commitment to getting it done regardless of the obstacles. It is a huge achievement. It has happened here because people tend to stay here, and everyone has worked together for a period of time. When you are busy and hiring, it becomes many times more difficult to make sure that those people learn to do the things that you want them to do. It is not that it is complicated, but if you are one new person in 10, it is different than if you are one new person in five. Obviously, we do hire people and have added a number of people in the last year. We are a lot larger and busier than we were two years ago. Construction is a cyclical business, and having to change size comes with the territory.
How unusual is it for someone in the construction industry to be an architect?
It’s not unique, but it is unusual. Certainly, trained construction managers and engineers predominate in our industry. When I was in graduate school [in 1973], I was working for an architect and a friend who was working for a construction company offered me a job with a $1.50 an hour raise, a 50 percent increase: It went from $2.50 to $4 an hour. I found that I liked [construction]. When I was in architecture school, I was always more interested in buildings versus the profession of architecture.
How do you compete with the big general contractors that do business in the Bay Area, nationally and even internationally?
Within the type of projects that we consider ourselves qualified to do and are good at, we don’t have any problem competing with anyone, and we do it all of the time. We don’t have the breadth of geographic base or the project types they do because they are so much bigger, but within the type of work we do, we expect to be the best, and that doesn’t relate much to size.
How would you compare demand today versus 2000?
I hope it is different from 2000 because that ended abruptly and badly. This to me doesn’t seem as crazy yet, even though the prices of real estate are appreciating. The volume of construction in SoMa, where we have a tremendous amount of work now, might make it the hottest real estate in the country, and Silicon Valley is very busy. But it never lasts at an even pitch. It seems to me from my narrow point of view that the cycles are getting shorter and more extreme, but I’m not sure if actual facts bear that out. The construction business itself is always about adapting to cycles and trying to diversify yourself, so when the cycles happen in different industries, you have something to fall back on.
Why did you agree to work with the City of Hope?
Well, two of my best clients, [TMG Partners Chairman and Chief Executive] Michael Covarrubias and [TMG partner] Richard Watkins suggested that I might do it, which was surprising and flattering to me, and part of that process was visiting City of Hope. When you see how incredibly smart the people are and what they are doing, it is mind-boggling. It is just amazing the level to which they have taken the investigation of diseases and the molecular workings of humans. They are much smaller than their main competitors and are not a part of any large tax-supported institutions, and that makes them need money but also able to do things that the larger research hospitals affiliated with mega universities won’t or can’t do. So I came away very much enthused about raising money for them. It’s an easy sell. There is not anyone’s life that isn’t touched by cancer, and they are curing cancer in some cases, and it is pretty amazing.