CONSTRUCTION UPDATE: Marin business expansion boosts Meylan Construction
BY JEFF
QUACKENBUSH After scaling back during the 2001 recession, Meylan Construction is back to the staffing and revenue levels of the heady dot-com days of Marin business expansion. Meylan’s staff had contracted from 25 to 15, and its annual job volume had plummeted from $5 million to $2 million. “Now, commercial confidence is much stronger, and businesses are feeling a lot better,” Mr. Meylan said. “We’re hearing about projects coming up in the near future, and we’re having conversations with property owners about improvements further down the road.” Recent unemployment and office-vacancy figures back Mr. Meylan’s assessment of the improving Marin economy. Marin’s unemployment rate was 3.3 percent in December, the lowest for the month since 2.4 percent in 2000, according to the state. Vacancy in southern Marin tightened to 7.1 percent at year-end from 14.2 percent in late 2004, according to commercial real estate brokerage Orion Partners. Because of this favorable environment, Mr. Meylan is looking to buy a former Industrial Light & Magic building at 3145 Kerner Blvd. in San Rafael. At press time, he was set to close escrow on the 7,800-square-foot building Feb. 15 and relocate his six office workers and 17 field employees there in May. Meylan Construction is leasing 3,000 square feet at 2660 Bridgeway in Sausalito through July. Meylan typically has 30 to 40 jobs going at once, ranging from service work for a couple of hundred dollars to $1.2 million for videogame developer Factor 5's new offices in San Rafael. The company is also working on a $400,000 remodel for Industrial Light & Magic's model shop and a $350,000 commercial condominium conversion for Quorum Real Estate Group in Novato. Mr. Meylan started the company in 1989, a few months after the Loma Prieta earthquake devastated San Francisco’s Marina district and other Bay Area locales. Previously, he was an estimator and union carpenter in San Francisco. On summer breaks from college studies in construction management, he worked on jobs overseen by his father, facility manager for telephone company facilities in the Bay Area in the 1960s and 1970s. Since those busy early days of Marina reconstruction and public utilities jobs, Meylan Construction jobs have shifted from 60 percent in San Francisco and 30 percent in Marin to about 70 percent in Marin. Geographic focus and specialization in commercial projects – when other interiors contractors also work on residential – has been challenging but rewarding in recent years. “I focus on commercial projects because of the relationship building, in which they will call you again in a few years if they like you,” he said. “In residential, you go through the same confidence curve until the job is done. After a referral, you have to start over with a new relationship.” Matt Storms of Keegan & Coppin is representing Mr. Meylan in the building purchase, and Sandy Greenblat of H&L Commercial is representing the building owner. For more information, call 415-289-1620 or visit www.meylanconstruction.com.
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