Real Estate & Construction
Tri-Cities Area Journal of Business • December 2017
23
Gale-Rew Construction building big red barn for new headquarters
Richland remodeling company’s new offices will be complete by July BY ROBIN WOJTANIK
for Tri-Cities Area Journal of Business
A big, red barn will be the new headquarters of Gale-Rew Construction in Richland, providing a permanent home base for the home builder and remodeling company that completes hundreds of projects each year. Since merging Rew Construction with Gale Developments in 2008, owner and president Brad Rew calls his company “one of the largest remodeling companies in North America.” Completing 200 remodeling projects annually, the company also builds a small number of custom and spec homes each year. But it’s been lacking a permanent address since leaving its former location earlier this year and moving to a temporary storefront on Terminal Drive, a stone’s throw from the Richland Airport. Its new location at 1616 Terminal Drive is further south, at the corner of Van Giesen Street and the bypass highway. “We get to design a space that’s going to help us better handle our remodels, our additions and our custom homes. We’ve just kind of gone into spaces and haven’t been able to really design something that really will work for us and our clients,” Rew said.
Excavation and foundation of the big, red barn started recently and is targeted to be finished by July. A building permit filed with the city of Richland shows the project is valued at $869,605. The land was previously owned by Columbia Basin Racquet Club, which had intended it for future parking needs. Rew was able to work out a parking plan with the club to buy the lot. The new headquarters will incorporate the popular farmhouse décor style that’s a mainstay on HGTV and made “shiplap” a household word. For those who don’t watch home improvement shows, shiplap is a type of wooden board used as siding. “Our style is very coastal, bungalow and farmhouse. We do a ton of that style. So this is really encompassing that,” Rew said. The building will be about 7,600 square feet, which will include offices, conference rooms, a showroom and a children’s playroom for employees’ families and the children of customers visiting the barn. A space for lease also will be available. Gale-Rew maintains a storage site on Wellsian Way for its construction materials and will continue to use that space. Gale-Rew Construction employs just under two dozen people, with another handful of part-time workers who subcon-
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Brad Rew, owner of Gale-Rew Construction, said his company is building a 7,600-square-foot building at 1616 Terminal Drive in Richland. Construction should be complete by July.
tract for the company. To complete 200 remodels a year, Gale-Rew project managers have their own team of workers and subcontractors who focus on 10 to 18 projects at any one time. Rew said the company has 60 open projects currently and may call on up to 340 subcontractors as needed. Remodeling has been continually lucrative for the company, despite being founded while the country was in the throes of a national recession. The demand has only increased as of late. “The housing market has a lot to do
with what we see happening,” Rew said. “Right now there’s hardly any land available. There’s hardly any homes to buy. So remodeling goes up.” His company is tapped for more cosmetic makeovers, ranging between $25,000 to $30,000 versus larger expansions or overhauls that could require $150,000 to complete. Rew said he believes clients are biding their time with the makeovers until they can get the home they want when there’s more housing inventory available in the Tri-Cities. uGALE-REW, Page 32