Vulcan Real Estate
Nov 2018
Seattle is one of the fastest-growing cities in America with real estate construction booming in all corners of the metropolitan landscape. Despite the upswing in large-scale real estate development projects, some small business subcontractors are unable to bid on projects because the full scope of work is often too large for their capacity.
To help expand opportunities for smaller subcontractors, Vulcan Real Estate works with our general contractors to create bid packages that allow our project scopes to be broken into smaller portions. This maximizes the potential for local small business subcontractors to participate and expands our vendor pool to mitigate construction risk.
Yesler
A good example of how this approach works is demonstrated by Vulcan Real Estate’s agreement with the Seattle Housing Authority (SHA) to redevelop Yesler. In its agreement, SHA prioritized affordability of units, the use of small business subcontractors, apprenticeship utilization, and energy efficiency to help control costs for residents.
At Yesler, where Vulcan has just completed an apartment building called Batik and broken ground on a second project called Cypress, we adapted an Earthwork bid package scope, enabling subcontractors to break out trucking services from their base scope. As a result, we were able to target and draw bids from smaller trucking agencies. We hired a small company that not only helped us meet our budget but also enabled us to meet our goals for engaging more small business subcontractors.
Tabor 100 Partnership
We worked with Tabor 100 to host a business expo where small-scale vendors showcased products and services, and expanded their network for future opportunities. Through connections made at this expo, we awarded 22 percent of our Batik project contract value to small business subcontractors that otherwise might not have been exposed to this opportunity.
We’re also proud to say that we exceeded our apprenticeship utilization by more than twofold. We introduced subcontractors to apprentices at vocational schools throughout Seattle and held an apprentice meet-and-greet at Seattle Vocational Institute. Six students were offered jobs with subcontractors for Batik.
Vulcan successfully awarded 22% of the subcontract value to small-scale businesses at Batik. In addition, we utilized 34% apprenticeship labor.
Central Area
Our agreement with the Seattle Housing Authority to build market rate apartments at Yesler, while promoting the use of small business subcontractors and apprenticeship labor inspired us to apply the same principles to other projects in neighboring communities, including the Central Area.
In 2018, we broke ground on a 532-unit multi-family residential project, Jackson Apartments, in the Central Area. Here, we achieved 14% small business subcontractor participation and 15% apprenticeship participation.
