Category: In the Field

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Overview of a Linear Accelerator

May 11, 2023
By: Teagan Wood, Marketing Coordinator
Hospitals operate a variety of critical, lifesaving pieces of equipment such as CT’s, MRI’s and Linear Accelerators. These complex machines, operating around the clock, are essential for detecting and treating numerous life-threatening illnesses. This imaging and oncology equipment is housed in special, complex rooms that are necessary to support the units while also protecting patients… read more

It’s All About the Kids — Stories from an Operational Campus Project

July 7, 2022
By: Teagan Wood, Marketing Coordinator
While it carries its own special logistical challenges, there’s something uniquely rewarding about working on a site that is busy day-to-day with the kids who get to learn and grow in the schools we’re building. This is one of the main reasons why K-12 projects are particularly special for our Lewis teams. I got to… read more

Rainier Square: A Building Like No Other

March 4, 2022
by Mackenzie Junor, Marketing and Communication Specialist
Towering above the streets of downtown, the new Rainier Square Tower has been applauded for many things; namely its first-of-its-kind core construction, impressive height and unique curved facade. Sitting on a tight site in Seattle’s Central Business District, the building shares a block with Minoru Yamasaki’s iconic tapered-based Rainier Tower and redefines the Seattle skyline.… read more

The Bioswale That’s Benefiting Our Bay

February 11, 2022
By: Teagan Wood, Marketing Coordinator
Looking out over Lake Washington, it’s easy to assume that the waterways in our beautiful city are clean. It is also easy to overlook the signs that dot the edges of the shoreline, warning of temporary pollution during rainstorms.   For the most part, the waterways are clean, but sometimes the infrastructure that filters the City’s… read more

Constructing a Clinic to Combat COVID-19

January 14, 2022
By: MacKenzie Junor, Marketing and Communication Specialist
Nestled in the heart of Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center’s South Lake Union campus—amongst life-saving cancer research—is the Hutch’s COVID-19 Clinical Research Center (CCRC). The 10,000-square-foot clinic, located in the Minor building, is on the hunt for effective treatment and prevention medications for COVID-19, the disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. At the CCRC, researchers… read more

Driving Towards a More Sustainable Future

August 23, 2021
by Jordan Gevers, Marketing Manager
Historically speaking, it’s no secret that construction hasn’t had the greenest track record in the world, and while the industry is making progress towards a more sustainable future, that progress can often seem frustratingly slow. As forward-looking ideas such as cross-laminated timber (CLT) or water reuse undergo rounds and rounds of testing to prove they… read more

Preserving the Facade at 400 Westlake

May 5, 2020
by Jacob Boyd, VDC Coordinator and Jordan Gevers, Marketing Manager
The Firestone Building has stood on the corner of Westlake and Harrison since 1929. At nearly 100 years old, it’s got some stories to tell. As a highly-valued historic Seattle landmark nestled in the heart of South Lake Union, the façade of the building is being preserved as a new, super-green 16-story office building is being built… read more

Building the Future for Women in Construction

March 5, 2020
by MacKenzie Junor, Communication Specialist
We shadowed Journeyman Operator Mercedes Toro and Journeyman Laborer Karen Francis to learn what it’s like to work at Rainier Square, how they found a career in construction and what they are doing to change the future of the industry. The two have more in common than meets the eye.  On the corner of… read more

Building Rainier Square, Part 1: The Revolutionary Core

June 19, 2019
by Jordan Gevers, Marketing Manager
If you’ve ventured into downtown Seattle recently, you may have noticed some big changes happening at 5th and Union, home to the iconic tapered-base Rainier Tower and the rapidly-rising mixed-use tower known as Rainier Square. At 850 feet, Rainier Square will be the second tallest tower in Seattle. It will certainly change Seattle’s skyline, and… read more

Career Technical Education Program at Roosevelt High School

October 9, 2016
By: Nate Buddress, Project Manager
In order for students to succeed, it’s important to prepare them for the ever-evolving professional world, which means not only higher education preparedness, but also career readiness. Today, more than ever, students are bombarded with endless opportunities and decisions that will shape their future careers—and it can be difficult to maneuver the variety of options… read more