Dense Housing, Office, Hotels All Under Construction

SAN JOSE—General and specialty contractor, Webcor, has completed more than 70 million square feet of projects to date, and is known for sustainable landmark structures and projects of all sizes. Current Bay Area projects include the Transbay Transit Center, Moscone Center expansion, Oceanwide Center office and residential high-rise, UC Merced 2020 expansion, UC Berkeley Bancroft Residence Hall and multiple contracts at the San Francisco International Airport.

Since 1971, Webcor has also delivered more than $2 billion of construction to Silicon Valley. Projects include contracts with San Jose State University, Samsung, eBay, Oracle and EA. Webcor also built Axis and The 88, two high-rise condo projects in downtown San Jose.

With this type of Silicon Valley presence, it seems a given that the firm would open a permanent Silicon Valley office at 1 Almaden Blvd. The San Jose office is Webcor’s fourth, joining the San Francisco headquarters, along with offices in Alameda and Los Angeles.

Shelley Doran, Webcor’s senior vice president of business development and 18-year Webcor veteran, relocated from the San Francisco office to lead the new office and focus on South Bay opportunities. In this exclusive, she recently discussed the new office’s recruiting efforts, South Bay projects and construction trends.

GlobeSt.com: Why is it the right time to open a new office and in this market?

Doran: Webcor has long been active in the South Bay; our original office was in San Mateo. With our strong local project backlog and a large number of employees living here, a new permanent office provides direct access for serving the quickly evolving needs of our clients, employees and recruits in this region.

Additionally, we see great potential to contribute to the region’s growth, as there is ample development happening in our core industry markets, such as commercial office, healthcare, hospitality, aviation, water/wastewater, transportation infrastructure, cultural, education and multifamily residential.

GlobeSt.com: How is the company focused on recruiting from the area’s talent pool?

Doran: Our culture, focused on inclusiveness, innovation and safety, is both entrepreneurial and collaborative–lending itself well to the Silicon Valley talent market. We are distinguishing ourselves within California’s dynamic construction market by offering the best training programs, and by recruiting from within as well as outside of the industry. We’ve recognized that many opportunities exist in the construction industry for people with what many would think is atypical expertise, like technological, financial and architectural, among others. Through our diversely skilled workforce from management to labor, we continuously improve our processes and build structures from small to landmark.

GlobeSt.com: In addition to the projects mentioned, what are some of the South Bay projects Webcor has built and is building now?

Doran: We have completed two high-rise condo projects in downtown San Jose, as well as the Ten Almaden office tower. As a concrete subcontractor, our projects have included residential structures, such as The 360 and Centerra, as well as the San Jose Convention Center.

We are currently working on a diverse portfolio of projects in Silicon Valley, such as the Menlo Gateway office campus and the adjacent Hotel Nia in Menlo Park, the 1 Hotel in Sunnyvale and our third multi-story office building at Bay Meadows in San Mateo.

GlobeSt.com: What’s hot in the Silicon Valley construction market?

Doran: With one of the world’s strongest economies, this market is hot from all angles. Dense housing, office buildings, infrastructure, hotels–it’s all under construction. This market also embraces building innovation, sustainability, wellness and space-use trends for the future, which is what you would expect from Silicon Valley and remain among Webcor’s key areas of focus as a builder. Silicon Valley businesses and developers require cutting-edge and responsive structures, which adds to the complexity of designing and constructing real estate in the region.