Project Profile: Escondido Village

Part of an ongoing series of articles highlighting outstanding work done by L&W Supply and our partners

Even when conditions are not ideal, sometimes a project can work out perfectly with the right insight, planning, and partnership. This happened recently with Escondido Village, a series of graduate residences for Stanford University that L&W Supply worked to complete with a number of partners, including USG and ClarkDietrich.

Escondido Village was constructed against the backdrop of a housing shortage in the Bay Area. The growth of Silicon Valley has caused a continuous influx of new residents, businesses, and visitors to Palo Alto and the surrounding areas. For Stanford University, home to 16,000 students including 9,000 graduate students, the challenge was how to provide adequate housing for their growing student population.

To meet the needs of incoming students, the University decided to replace several lower-capacity apartments to develop Escondido Village Graduate Residences. The five million square-foot project was commissioned to be built in three years, coordinated by General Contractors (Vance Brown Builders) in collaboration with California Drywall, ClarkDietrich, L&W Supply, and USG.

Initial Stages

The Escondido Village jobsite at Stanford University

The conditions and complexity of the work required some of L&W Supply’s most experienced stocking crew members. Tight jobsite access meant that the coordination of trucking, stocking and timing of arrivals, along with storage of materials, was an enormous task. Most of the loads were placed to ship to the jobsite directly, but many ended up coming into the L&W Supply San Jose branch first due to limited space on the jobsite for the material to be stored. The material had to be unloaded, stored and reloaded for each specific area of this four building, 10-story job. Thanks to the entire L&W Supply San Jose team, this process was accomplished safely and efficiently despite difficulties and setbacks.

“It takes real teamwork on so many levels to make a project of this size and complexity run each and every day,” says Walter Reinthaler, L&W Supply San Jose Branch Manager. “The teamwork between Cal Drywall, Clark Dietrich, USG and L&W Supply helped keep production going through so many challenges of scheduling, manufacturing, weather and manpower.”

Coordination & Partnership

Stacks of drywall at Escondido Village

As with any large project on a tight timeline, strong collaboration from vendors was a key factor in its success. This led to various time-saving efforts from all of the companies involved.

Two of our partners, USG and ClarkDietrich, were in close contact with our team at every step of the process, producing custom sizes and lengths for material while staying on top of lead-times and packaging. USG produced custom cut suspension and wallboard for the project, broken down into specific bundles, making It easier for Cal Drywall installers to hang the board right away. USG’s Wall-to-Wall suspension helped contribute to the success of the installation, allowing for 30% labor savings due to the elimination of cross tees, hanger wires, and other intermediate supports.

L&W Supply yard associates pre-packaged the drywall grid by area, floor, and room type in order to ensure that installation could be completed on time. Metal studs had to be broken down in same fashion. This involved great work from ClarkDietrich, who helped save time by breaking down orders of metal studs to specific packaging so that it was ready to be quickly assembled on-site.

Delivery & Installation

Metal studs bundled together to save time

The team faced unique challenges with access to the jobsite and the logistics of having to coordinate all of the moving parts involved with the job. The project involved four 10-story buildings going up at the same time, requiring tight scheduling of man-lifts in order to bring materials into the building. At times, this project required as many as 14 stockers/helpers from L&W Supply San Jose all working in unison.

One of the ways that the teams were successfully able to accomplish this level of coordination was through weekly meetings. Every Monday afternoon, California Drywall and L&W Supply would hold a jobsite visit or a conference call to review the weekly schedule material delivery, stocking areas, jobsite storage, and manpower. Due to the ever-changing nature of the schedule, these calls were extremely productive, allowing the team to collaborate and share concerns before they become issues.

Thanks to the efforts of our partners and the whole L&W Supply San Jose branch, we were able to overcome these challenges, keeping the project on schedule.

The Escondido Village jobsite in progress

Moving Forward

Escondido Village is on track to open in 2020, ultimately providing over 2,000 new beds to Stanford graduate students. The successful collaboration between USG, California Drywall, ClarkDietrich and L&W Supply resulted in time and cost-savings throughout the project, with work ultimately being completed ahead of schedule. Given that the timeline was such a concern, every company involved demonstrated effective coordination and teamwork to deliver outstanding results.

Once the first round of construction is completed, Escondido Village part two is scheduled to begin on Stanford Campus in 2020. L&W Supply would like to extend a thanks to everyone involved, and we’re looking forward to replicating our team’s success on the second phase of the project!