Puget Sound Business Journal, October 2006

Building a building in less than a year

Just nine months from contract to completion.

That's how long it took to finish the new 140,000-square-foot Everett building where Goodrich Corp. will finish engine assemblies for the new Boeing 787. It was the speed of completion, more than the building itself, that caught most people's attention at a Sept. 20 ceremony.

"We broke ground on Valentine's Day," said Curtis Reusser, president of Goodrich Corp. "I for one was very skeptical that we could get something built in the amount of time we had."

While the building itself is little more than walls and a vast and shiny concrete floor, those who built it envisioned the way it will be in a few short months from now, when it will be packed with equipment to install cowlings and nacelles onto Rolls-Royce and General Eletric jet engines for the 787. The building had to be done rapidly in order to assemble complete engines in time for Boeing's first scheduled delivery of the aircraft in 2008.

Reusser said the timetable helped his company get permits with unusual swiftness.

"By the time we did any groundbreaking, all the permit processing was done in a record seven or eight days," he said. "I don't know anyplace else in the country where you could get something like that done ... The support from the county and from Paine Field, has just been amazing."

The new building, close to Boeing's Everett assembly building where the 787 will be built, will cost $20 million with initial equipment. It was built by Sierra Construction Co. of Snohomish.