Member Highlight: Walsh Construction
HDC appreciates all the passion, hard work, and dedication our members devote to the affordable housing movement. No single organization could make this impact and secure this progress alone. The collaboration and connection among members is the human energy that works to ensure all people have a safe, healthy, and affordable home. We want to show our appreciation and learn more about our affordable housing community through these member highlights as each member is crucial to achieving the larger vision of this movement. This week our featured member is Walsh Construction. Thank you for all the work that you do!
- What excites your team about the work you are doing? We love problem-solving, sharing knowledge, using technologies and strategies that build value. What excites us most is helping our partners and clients build the project they want to build and helping make a difference in our community.
- What is a favorite office anecdote?
Our Seattle office held its first Take Your Child to Work Day this year and it was a big deal – we wanted to cover all these construction subjects and not end up with thirty bored kids! At the end of a full day of fun, age-oriented activities cooked up by our incredibly creative TYCTWD team, we surveyed the results. The kids had tackled Building Information Modeling, Estimating, Plan Reading, and learned the Rules of Safety. They explored Quality Control with infrared cameras (woohoo!), built toolboxes, made legendary Lego structures, ate pizza and got to visit a jobsite and “drive” a backhoe. They were fulfilled. We were exhausted…but ready to do this again! Engaging all these youngsters (5-9 years) and older youngsters (10+), had been a great success and we were ready for next year. However, we realized our scheduling was off:
Walsh Parents: You guys ready to come back to work next year?
Walsh Kids: We have to wait a whole YEAR? We want to come back to work next week!
- What upcoming projects, partnerships, and news are you looking forward to?
We’re excited to begin construction on several upcoming community projects. These include
Station House for Capitol Hill Housing, which will have 110 apartments affordable to working families. The project sits adjacent to Capitol Hill light rail station and will include over 1,300 sf of community space. Two others starting soon are Little Saigon Housing, developed by LIHI, with 69 affordable apartments for families with children, seniors, couples, and shared space for community events; and the 501 Rainier project developed by Plymouth Housing, which will provide 106 apartments with support services for residents.
We also want to congratulate Elizabeth Rinehart, our new General Manager in Washington! Elizabeth has more than 18 years’ experience in the construction industry, including 13 years with Walsh, and brings a commitment to building sustainable and affordable neighborhoods. Her work has helped provide new housing and services for individuals, families and seniors across King County.
- What have you been most proud of during your time as an HDC member?
We have been grateful to be a part of HDC for the past 21 years. We are consistently inspired by the community of HDC members all working toward the common goals of ensuring that all people live with dignity in safe, healthy, and affordable homes. We are proud to build the projects that make a difference in our communities and we are in awe of the housing provider’s abilities to pull together difficult projects and then partner with us to let us build them!
