Saunders Construction Blog
WHAT WE’RE SAYING
Soft-Story Collapse: Is Your Building at Risk?
Earthquakes strike without warning, and not all buildings are designed to withstand their force. If you own or manage a commercial or industrial property, it’s crucial to understand whether your building is at risk. Soft-story buildings—characterized by open ground...
Seismic Retrofitting: Why NOW Is the Best Time
Many property owners know seismic retrofitting offers essential benefits, but fewer understand why timing matters so much. Waiting to retrofit increases risks and can mean missed opportunities to improve property value and safety. While earthquakes aren’t common...
What Are the Most Common Structural Repairs?
Structural repairs are crucial to maintaining the safety and stability of commercial and industrial buildings. These repairs focus on critical building elements like roofs, foundations, floors, exterior walls, and support columns. All types of buildings—including...
Concrete Tilt-Ups: Pros, Cons, and Seismic Concerns
Factors like construction cost value, experience, qualifications, and tenant operations are critical when selecting a contractor and engineer for your projects. Concrete tilt-up construction is one of the most popular methods in the commercial and industrial sectors...
Are You Ready for the Great California ShakeOut 2024?
The Great California ShakeOut is an annual earthquake drill that takes place on the third Thursday of October, designed to help millions of people across California and beyond prepare for earthquake emergencies. This year’s drill is scheduled for October 17, 2024, at...
Earthquake Retrofits: 6 Benefits You Can’t Ignore
Earthquake retrofitting is a crucial step for property owners in earthquake-prone areas. Earthquakes pose significant risks to both buildings and their occupants, making it essential to ensure that your property can withstand seismic forces. While the initial...
The Northridge Earthquake: Pioneering Disaster Recovery
The 1994 Northridge Earthquake is remembered for the widespread destruction it caused across Southern California, but its long-term impact on disaster recovery planning is equally significant. It became a turning point for modern recovery methods, later applied to...
2024 Guide to California Balcony Inspections and Compliance
In California, ensuring the safety and structural integrity of balconies, decks, and similar elevated structures is more critical than ever, with the California balcony inspection law mandating compliance by January 1, 2025. This ordinance was introduced after a...
Who Do I Hire for Structural Repairs?
Structural repairs are critical for maintaining the safety and integrity of your commercial or industrial property. Structural problems like roof condensation don’t fix themselves; they only worsen over time, leading to more extensive and costly repairs. Whether...
The Northridge Earthquake: Shaping Modern Seismic Resilience
As part of the Earthquake Country Alliance’s Northridge Earthquake Anniversary Webinar Series, Episode 4, titled “The Northridge Earthquake – 30 Years Later – A Catalyst for Engineering Resilient Communities,” brought together experts to explore how the...
Discover the Saunders Retrofit Advantage
In business since 1979, Saunders Seismic is a commercial industrial contractor that has specialized in seismic solutions since 1984. We perform seismic retrofits and structural repairs to existing buildings, making them more earthquake-resistant. However, when it...
SEL vs. SUL: Mastering Seismic Risk Assessments
Seismic events pose significant risks to structures, especially in earthquake-prone areas. Therefore, understanding seismic risk is critical to ensure buildings’ safety and financial viability. Lenders, insurance companies, and risk managers use risk assessments...
Building Seismic Safety: The Seismic Retrofit Process
Despite advancements in building codes, older structures may still need to meet current seismic safety standards. Building owners, property managers, and investors must understand how an effective seismic retrofit process protects lives and commercial investments....
The Cold Storage Boom: 8 Trends Driving Demand
Cold storage is quickly becoming one of the fastest-growing sectors in commercial real estate. A recent Skyquest report shows demand is expected to grow from $43.2 billion in 2023 to $118.8 billion by 2031. This surge is fueled by changing consumer habits, new...
West Coast Seismic Risks: Protect Your Real Estate Assets
Last week, the Los Angeles Times reported multiple swarms of earthquakes along the California-Mexico border. Earthquake swarms are common in the Imperial Valley and can be a cause for concern, as major, damaging earthquakes have been known to follow. However, these...
Seismic Retrofits: A Smart Investment for Soft-Story Buildings
Soft-story apartment buildings are characterized by open tuck-under parking or commercial space on the ground floor and residential units above. They are prevalent in many urban areas, especially in California, which is a high seismic activity region, and due to their...
Top Trends Shifting Retail in Commercial Real Estate
The forecast for retail in commercial real estate is undergoing significant shifts, influenced by various factors and trends. Retail Commercial Real Estate will surely be top of mind at the upcoming ICSC Las Vegas conference. ICSC Las Vegas is the largest commercial...
Marin Medical Center Client Profile: Healthcare Facilities, Hospitals & Medical Offices
Saunders Seismic recently completed a seismic retrofit for Marin Cancer Medical Center. One of our fortes is completing seismic retrofits and structural repairs in occupied spaces with ongoing tenant operations. This requires a lot of client communication and customer...
Top Takeaways from NAIOP’s I.CON West 2024
One of the best annual industrial events in commercial real estate is NAIOP’s I.CON West (& East). This year, in Long Beach, CA, a record-setting crowd of over 1,200 of the industry’s top industrial owners, developers, investors, and vendors attended for...
Understanding Building Types & Structural Failures (Video)
Sometimes a simple video is worth a million words. For a complete understanding of a sometimes-over-complicated explanation of building basics and how structural failures occur, please view the following video:...
Reflecting on 30 Years Since the Northridge Earthquake
“What would have happened if the Earthquake struck during normal working hours?” Fortunately, it was a holiday in 1994, and the notorious Northridge quake struck at 4:31 AM PST. It was an earthquake magnitude of 6.7, and the shaking lasted 10–20 seconds. The quake’s...
2024 Top Predictions for Commercial Real Estate
Last year there was a lot of speculation regarding a recession on the horizon which could still holds true for 2024. The top factors in 2023 to influence commercial real estate are geopolitical issues, inflation and rising interest rates which would impact all asset...
California Balcony Inspections, What to Know!
In California, there is a mandatory safety inspection and must be performed before January 1, 2025. According to SB-721, this bill would require an inspection of exterior elevated elements and associated waterproofing elements, as defined, including decks and...
Why Pre-Construction Planning Matters for Seismic Retrofits
We specialize in seismic solutions and provide efficient services from start to finish on each project. Our estimating bids set the standard for being precise, detailed, and technical with our specialized processes down to the phase of the final daily routine,...
Safety Training with American Scissor Lift and Guardian Fall Protection
Another year, another safety training! Thank you to American Scissor Lift Inc. and Guardian Fall Protection for hosting and providing equipment training, harness safety training, and boom/scissor and forklift training with the safety orientation. Their expertise and...
What are 6-Major Benefits to performing seismic retrofits?
What are the top benefits seismic retrofitting your commercial building? 6-Major Benefits of Seismic Retrofits 1. Mitigate Risk & Liability: Seismic retrofits significantly mitigate risk and liability associated with earthquake damage. By proactively strengthening...
Insights from NAIOP’s Alternative Development Program & CREW’s Industrial Summit
Saunders Seismic attended NAIOP’s Alternative Development—Uses/Considerations Program and CREW’s Industrial Real Estate Summit last month. Each event shared insightful and informative information. The Alternative Development program explored new or alternative...
Value Engineering & Budgets
Saunders Construction has over four decades of experience performing seismic retrofits. We have completed thousands of projects on every type of building with our top management logging thousands of hours of field experience. As a result, we have encountered countless...
What Is a “Hurriquake”? Disaster Risks Explained
In mid-August, California was on watch of Hurricane Hilary, which would be downgraded to a tropical storm by the time it hit land. The National Hurricane Center said it had the potential for “life-threatening” floods and debris flow warnings, which remained in effect...
What is Functional Recovery?
According to Ryan Kersting,(Associate Principal, Buehler Engineering) Functional recovery is a post-event (e.g., post-earthquake) performance state in which a building or lifeline infrastructure system is maintained, or restored, to safely and adequately support the...