Author: Lewis Team

Lewis and GCON Set First Panels for 72 MW Data Center in Phoenix Area

April 2, 2025
By: Lewis Team
Crews from a joint venture of Lease Crutcher Lewis and Phoenix-based general contractor GCON recently set the first precast panels for a future 72-megawatt datacenter in Waddell, Arizona. In addition to the precast concrete structure and complex envelope of the two-story, 445,000-square-foot data center, the buildout will also include administrative spaces and loading docks. GCON… read more

Western State Hospital Concrete Work Begins This Month

April 1, 2025
By: Lewis Team
Lewis subsidiary Crutcher Structures is partnering with Clark Construction Group to deliver a major concrete package for the new 467,000-square-foot, 350-bed Western State Hospital New Forensic Hospital and a 53,000-square-foot mass timber administration building. This project marks a significant step forward in transforming behavioral healthcare for forensic patients in Washington state, and we're proud to be a part of it!… read more

Seeing Both Sides: The Value of Design-Construction Integration

March 11, 2025
By: Lewis Team
In a new Q&A with the Seattle DJC today, senior design-construction integrator Eva Talbot shares how her team is helping shape all phases of project delivery at Lewis. As a licensed architect with a background in industrialized construction, Eva brings a unique perspective to Lewis, bridging the gap between design and construction and helping Lewis… read more

Recapping CoreNet Washington State’s Event at Lewis

March 10, 2025
By: Lewis Team
Seattle’s commercial real estate market is facing headwinds, but local industry leaders see reasons for optimism. At CoreNet Global Washington State Chapter's event at Lewis’ office last Thursday, four panelists weighed in on the challenges and opportunities shaping today’s construction and real estate development landscape. “We have a diversified economy, we have really well-capitalized growth… read more

Welcoming Senior Superintendent Kory Ray to Lewis

February 3, 2025
By: Lewis Team
A chance interaction set Lewis Senior Superintendent Kory Ray on the path to a 25-year career in commercial construction. At 18, Kory joined his father—a school district facilities director—on a tour of a construction site in their hometown of Lebanon, Oregon. While watching a framing crew at work, Kory made some observations. A site superintendent… read more

Building Connections: Maywood Hills Elementary Students Put Imprint on Project

December 3, 2024
By: Brian Aske, Education Market Director, FDBIA
This fall, second and third graders from Maywood Hills Elementary School in Bothell, Washington, reached out to our team with artwork and heartfelt thank you letters for the work crews are doing on campus. The students’ letters include thoughtful questions to feed their natural curiosity about how things are built. To show our appreciation and… read more

Going All-Electric: A Superintendent’s Early Impressions

October 9, 2024
By: Lewis Team
After seven years, 133,000 miles, and countless work trips across the Pacific Northwest, Lewis general superintendent Doug Maxfield agreed it was time to retire his old work pickup earlier this year. When it came to choosing a replacement, Doug jumped at the opportunity to drive one of Lewis’ first all-electric rigs. His father owns a… read more

Building Futures: Farm-to-Table Learning in Seattle’s Central District

September 30, 2024
By: Lewis Team
Last week, a volunteer crew from Lewis joined forces with Sawhorse Revolution staff to install cedar tongue-and-groove siding at Cherry Street Farm, where a future demonstration kitchen is taking shape. Once complete, this kitchen will support a 320-square-foot hydroponic growing lab for vegetables operated by Hip Hop is Green, all on a 5,000-square-foot residential lot… read more

A Seismic Transformation for the State of Oregon’s North Valley Complex

September 13, 2024
By: Ben McLean, Communications Specialist
In communities across the Pacific Northwest, residents live with the knowledge that “The Big One,” a mammoth seismic event involving the Cascadia subduction zone, could strike at any time. The heightened awareness around this and other natural disaster scenarios has accelerated a trend evident for the past decade, especially among public owners. To maintain operational continuity in… read more

Inside Lane Community College’s ITEC Project

September 3, 2024
By: Tanner Perrine, Project Executive
Twenty years ago, right around the time I first entered the construction industry fresh out of the Oregon State University, I noticed a significant shift around me. Fewer and fewer young people seemed interested in getting jobs in the trades, foreshadowing a workforce labor problem that’s only gotten worse with time. With many skilled workers… read more

Regulations for Energy Efficiency in the PNW: What They Mean for Healthcare Buildings

July 21, 2024
By: Julianna Plant, Senior Preconstruction Manager
New building performance standards impacting healthcare are coming to Washington and Oregon to reduce energy use and emissions from the building sector. How prepared is your organization? The state of Washington has taken a leading role in enforcing new energy-efficiency standards that could influence how other states implement strategies for decarbonization. In 2019, Washington passed… read more

Progressive Design-Build Case Study: Innovation Hall

July 11, 2024
By Lewis Team
In November 2023, University of Washington Bothell and Cascadia College celebrated the opening of Innovation Hall, a shared academic building that allows for the significant expansion in STEM research and education in Washington state. The project is the first academic building in the nation shared by a community college and a university. Using a progressive… read more

2024 Lewis Scholarship Recipients: Gabriel Nuñez-Sanchez and Hattie Zhang

June 12, 2024
By: Lewis Team
The Lease Crutcher Lewis Foundation is now in its third year of making grants and scholarship awards, activating the collective resources of our employees and partners to improve our communities. The foundation supports historically underrepresented people in the construction industry and non-profits that help build a more diverse workforce for the industry. Below, meet 2024… read more

Press Release: Lewis Promotes Three Leaders in Washington Division

May 20, 2024
By: Lewis Team
SEATTLE – Lease Crutcher Lewis (Lewis) announced today the promotion of Shannon Testa and James Furlan to vice president of operations and Jeremy Callas to director of operations for the company’s corporate market sector. “We’re building on nearly 140 years of tradition by elevating the next generation of Lewis leaders from within,” said Chief Executive Officer Bart… read more

Healthcare Superintendent Profile: Shane Weller

May 6, 2024
By: Lewis Team
In 1989, Lewis senior superintendent Shane Weller’s grandfather Bill brought him to the Boeing Red Barn at Seattle’s Museum of Flight. The structure, the country’s oldest surviving aircraft factory, held special meaning for the Weller family. It was there that Bill closed out his carpentry career in 1983, working on the barn’s restoration before retiring.… read more

Press Release: Coriann Presser Named Washington Division President

May 2, 2024
By: Lewis Team
SEATTLE – Lease Crutcher Lewis (Lewis) announced today the promotion of Coriann Presser to President of the company’s Washington Division. Presser joined Lewis in 2005 as an intern and has since served in the roles of project engineer, project manager, project executive, and most recently operations director leading the company's Life Science market sector. In her… read more

Strategies for Reducing Construction’s Carbon Impact

April 26, 2024
By: Julianna Plant, Senior Preconstruction Manager
By now, this staggering number will be familiar to many: 40 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions come from buildings—constructing them, running them and retiring them. These are the places where we work, learn, heal, discover life-saving cures and govern. But they also play an outsized role in changing the climate. In the past… read more

North Valley Complex: Using Wood Salvaged From Oregon’s 2020 Wildfires

April 22, 2024
By: Lauren Holmes, Project Executive
While transforming a Wilsonville, Oregon, warehouse into a lab building and workplace for several State of Oregon agencies, Lewis and SERA Architects incorporated wood salvaged from the devastating wildfires of 2020 into new finishes throughout the reimagined space. These wooden slats can be found in “nodes” built along the North Valley Complex's circulation paths, adding… read more

WIC Week Profile: Estimator Sharaya Hays

March 4, 2024
By: Lewis Team
As a high schooler on summer break in her hometown of Anchorage, Alaska, it wasn’t unusual to find Sharaya Hays laying on the grass in her backyard, sketching houses and floor plans on graph paper. She was sure she’d be an architect. Her passion for design could be traced to her dad, Cam, who owned… read more

WIC Week Profile: Site Safety Coordinator Adriana Mendoza

March 3, 2024
By: Lewis Team
As an undergrad at Washington State University, Adriana Mendoza majored in kinesiology with the aim of becoming a physical therapist. But an internship at a PT clinic her senior year in the Tri-Cities opened her eyes to underlying safety challenges across a variety of industries. She'd see many repeat patients—often from the same construction sites—dealing… read more

Deploying Dusty, Lewis’ Robotic Layout Sidekick

February 14, 2024
By: Lewis Team
Dusty, our robotic layout sidekick, returned to action last week at a corporate client’s office TI in Redmond, Wash. Dusty used a digital model to print wall layouts directly onto the project floor in one pass, with markings to guide our framing, HVAC, plumbing, and electrical trade partners during their scopes of work.  Automating… read more

Building While Caring: Minimizing Construction Impacts in an Active ED

January 26, 2024
By: Ben McLean, Communications Specialist
Lewis is midway through a 57,000-square-foot emergency department (ED) renovation project at Providence St. Vincent Medical Center (PSV) in Portland, Oregon. The project involves expanding the patient room count from 52 beds to 72. It also includes a new and improved imaging department, universal exam rooms, the relocation of the behavioral health unit and the… read more

North Eugene High School and the Modern Learning Environment

January 16, 2024
By: Elsa Manning, Senior Marketing Specialist
Many of us were lucky to have ample windows in our schools growing up. Windows allow natural light and make classrooms and common areas feel more open, which has been proven to support learning and boost mental health. In recent years, the trend toward better daylighting has become a must-have in today’s learning environments. Research… read more

Press Release: Renewing Our Commitment to Downtown Portland

January 11, 2024
By: Lewis Team
PORTLAND, Ore. – Lease Crutcher Lewis (Lewis) has signed a long-term lease extension for over 10 years at the Culver Building on the corner of Southwest 12th and Alder, where the company currently occupies 15,500 square feet of office space across three floors. Additionally, Lewis will be expanding its footprint into the building’s remaining 2,000… read more

Seven Key Factors for Assessing New Office Space

December 14, 2023
By: Jeremy Callas, Director of Operations
Office demand in the Seattle, Bellevue and Portland markets continues to shift. Evolving work-from-home policies, combined with different market conditions, mean that many companies are reassessing their space requirements. In markets where vacancy rates are up, companies have more choices when it comes to relocating or building out a new space. With more options available… read more

New Rebar Coupler System Allows Interior Buildouts to Start Sooner

December 12, 2023
By: Lewis Team
At Trammell Crow Company's 1916 Boren, we're using a new rebar coupler system to eliminate leave-out strips, allowing us to start interior buildouts more quickly. This marks the first time the system has been used in Washington state. With typical concrete pours, large slabs are separated by unfilled strips—called pour strips—to accommodate concrete shrinkage during… read more

Reflecting on Obliteride 2023

December 4, 2023
By: Lewis Team
With a steady rain falling and the days getting ever shorter, it's hard to believe that Obliteride was held on a balmy weekend just four months ago. In addition to those on the Lewis & Friends team who took to their bikes, walked, ran, donated, or otherwise participated, 23 volunteers also helped make the day… read more

Two Higher-Ed Projects Leveraging Progressive-Design Build

October 26, 2023
By: Brian Aske, Education Market Director, FDBIA
The Seattle Daily Journal of Commerce recently featured a pair of Lewis projects in the publication's annual Higher Education special section. Opening this winter quarter, Innovation Hall is set to be the first academic building in the nation shared by a university (University of Washington-Bothell) and a college (Cascadia College). Writing in the DJC, Lewis'… read more

Helping Diverse Subcontractors Clear More Hurdles

October 16, 2023
By: Lewis Team
During Construction Inclusion Week 2023, Lewis’ Jay Sorensen authored a piece in the Seattle DJC about how recent collaborations with Ahora Construction and Professional Lath and Plaster have helped us better understand some of the biggest barriers to MBE participation. One of the overarching reasons is this: companies like theirs don't often get treated like… read more

Tilting Up Wall Panels at Terminal 106

September 27, 2023
By: Lewis Team
In September, Crutcher Structures crews began erecting concrete tilt-up wall panels by the dozen at Terminal 106's Seattle Metro Logistics, a two-story warehouse and distribution center being built for Trammell Crow Company just south of downtown Seattle. Within two weeks, about two-thirds of the project’s 156 exterior panels were installed. Each panel was first cast… read more

Lewis Foundation 2023 Scholarship Winner: Edgar Conde

September 6, 2023
By: Lewis Team
At first, Edgar Conde didn’t envision a life in construction. Hailing from a family entrenched in the industry, he had big plans to become a mechanical engineer and work on cars, a passion only second to soccer. But even the best-made plans change. The further into his college career, the more Edgar was drawn to… read more

Building a High-Performing Life Science Team

August 30, 2023
By: Coriann Presser, Life Science Market Director
As career builders, few things faze Lease Crutcher Lewis’ life science team. Architectural concrete, cGMP spaces, below-grade research suites with highly sensitive vibration requirements, interstitial floors packed with enough MEP infrastructure to service a small village—we’ve built that. At the same time, we acknowledge that life science projects are tough. From coordinating lab benches and… read more