Feature article about Swinerton Builders winning the Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal's "Contractor of the Year Award".

1. 96 N. Third St.
Suite 100
San Jose, CA 95112
OCTOBER 28, 2005
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SILICON VALLEY / SAN JOSE
Reprinted with permission from The Business Journal
BY DANEK S. KAUS
sanjose@bizjournals.com
Fresh from the artistic success of
its work on the historic California
Theatre, Swinerton Builders in Santa
Clara has over $200 million worth of
work under construction, according
to Ed Blanke, vice president, division
manager.
Its recent jobs have included a ball
park, performing arts center and
earth-friendly structures.
But the crown jewel of the compa-
ny’s year was the renovation of the
California Theatre in San Jose, a proj-
ect recently honored by the California
Preservation Foundation with a 2005
Preservation Design Award.
“It was a historic renovation of a
classic architecture building built in
the 1920s, and one of the most beauti-
ful,” Mr. Blanke says.
Another of Swinerton’s San Jose proj-
ects is a 150,000 square-foot, mixed use
complex the Second and Santa Clara
site that is part of the city’s redevel-
opment. When completed, the project
will have high-end retail space, a four-
story apartment building, two six-sto-
ry condo buildings and two levels of
below-grade parking.
In the past year, Swinerton has com-
pleted two state-of-the-art high school
performing arts centers for the Santa
Clara Unified School District.
The Santa Clara High School
Performing Arts Center is a 425-seat,
14,281-square-foot, free-standing per-
forming arts facility that can accom-
modate a variety of events. It features
professional sound and lighting sys-
tems, orchestra pits, catwalks and
scene shops.
The Wilcox High School Performing
Arts center is the home to the Mission
City Center for Performing Arts and
functions as a joint-use facility be-
tween the SCUSD and the City of Santa
Clara. It is a 375-seat, 22,000-square-
foot facility with a full fly for elaborate
set changes, a black box rehearsal the-
atre, and a professional lift in the or-
chestra pit that allows the stage to be
extended for full-scale performances.
The company also finished work at
Banner Island Ballpark in Stockton,
which has a baseball park for the
California League Stockton Ports.
According to Mr. Blanke, the stadium
was featured in Sports Illustrated as
one of the best new minor league parks
in the nation. The location also has
a 10,000 seat arena that will be com-
pleted in December.
The company is also working on the
Cupertino Library and Civic Center
project, which consists of a new com-
munity hall, plaza and a 54,000 square-
foot two-story library, built on the ex-
isting library site.
The entire project, which was seven
years in planning and fundraising,
was built on time and under budget,
Mr. Blanke says.
Swinerton is also working on some
significant green projects. The new
dining hall and welcome center at
Presentation Center in the Los Gatos
Hills will be one of the first LEED
certified green buildings in the area.
LEED certification is significant be-
cause the program is overseen by the
U.S. Green Building Council.
Now in pre-construction planning,
the Evergreen Valley College Arts
Center is also going for LEED certifica-
tion. Some of the features that the col-
lege hopes will earn a Gold rating are
situating the building to take advan-
tage of solar radiation, the use of green
building materials and installing effi-
cient water and energy systems.
In addition to helping build the val-
ley, Swinerton is also giving back.
TheSwinertonFoundationgivescash
and in-kind donations. Last year, the
foundation donated more than $167,000
to such groups as ACE Mentoring
Group, American Cancer Society Relay
for Life, Big Brothers, Big Sisters,
Habitat for Humanity, Mountain
View Educational Foundation, Valley
Humane Society and many more.
According to Mr. Blanke, one of the
reasons that Swinerton is so success-
ful is that it is employee-owned.
“When you are dealing with us, as
big as we are, the person you are deal-
ing with is an owner who has a vested
interest in the success of the project. I
think [building] owners reap the bene-
fit of that in the quality of the project,”
he says.
Mr. Blanke predicts continued suc-
cess for Swinerton.
“We are one of the oldest commer-
cial builders in California,” he says.
“We’ve been around for 116 years and
we’ll be here for another 116 years.”
DANEK S. KAUS is a freelance writer based in
Mountain View.
California Theatre performance
was high note for Swinerton
DOUG CODY
STATE OF THE ART: Project Superintendant Richard Lapp tours the completed performing arts theater at Santa
Clara High School built by Swinerton Builders.
WINNER - CONTRACTOR OF THE YEAR