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September 2021 #13266 Page #84
From the Road... The "Other" Modular Sector
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By Thomas McAnally
hen most people think of modular buildings, they think modular homes and mobile homes. Most people don’t know about a third element in the modular building’s world, Commercial Modular. For the sake of simplicity, the commercial side of the industry has both mobile (as in mobile offices and other portable structures intended to be moved multiple times during their lifetime) and modular buildings (as in sections that are put together on a permanent foundation for long term use such as Swedish Edmonds Medical Oncology Clinic). Commercial modular can be anything from offices, retail, medical, telecom, educational, healthcare, hospitality, industrial, military, or even hotel and apartment buildings. The configurations are as vast as any architect can envision. From the Hilton on the Riverwalk in San Antonio to a school near you, commercial modular can provide quality construction, faster and usually less expensive than can be provided using traditional construction. Full disclosure, I once worked as a general manager under the owner of Whitley Evergreen, Simon Dragan, when he was the VP of Manufacturing for Williams Scotsman back in the 1990s.
Whitley Manufacturing is based in South Whitley, Indiana with plants in Indiana, Pennsylvania, and Washington state. It was a quick Yes when I asked permission to visit their Whitley Evergreen plant in Marysville, Washington. Known as one of the most difficult states to operate a commercial modular manufacturing facility, I was always interested in how they juggled the intense approval and inspection process Washington requires. Most states require a third-party inspection and approval firm to oversee a modular plant and they have a process to ensure the manufacturer follows the state’s quality and code compliance. To do that, inspectors will check each process in production on a periodic basis, but not all processes on
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