Modern Home Builder - Winter 2018 - 123
The units are spread all over the city, from Chinatown to central San Francisco and even sites in the southeast neighborhoods including Bernal Heights and Hunter's Point and toward the Pacific Ocean. This has presented a welcome opportunity for Fine Line Construction, one of the few general contractors in the Bay Area that specializes in such projects. "Overall there are 29 RAD sites to be worked on," Fine Line Vice President Emily Lin says. "And Fine Line Construction is the general contractor for 10 of those sites, so our pipeline has seen some significant growth. "For Fine Line, the total number of units to be rehabbed is 1,100," Lin continues. "And so many of those units were in terrible condition, with deferred maintenance and inadequate amenities. It was a huge opportunity for the city and nonprofit developers to step up and stabilize a deteriorating situation." UNIQUE SENSIBILITIES In choosing Fine Line as general contractor on a significant portion of the project, the city and nonprofit developers such as Bridge Housing elected to go with a company uniquely prepared to handle such work. Since it was founded in 1980, Fine Line has specialized in nonprofit housing, affordable housing, transitional housing, senior housing and multi-dwelling hospice communities. On this present project, it was crucial to have a GC experienced in working with many tenants. "It takes a different quality of preconstruction service to make the project work," Lin says. "There is a lot of scheduling to be done with moving tenants out, and the renovations really have to be phased in." In addition to its logistics know-how, Fine Line is experienced in simply making tenants' lives easier and managing anxieties during the process. "One thing that we have heard from tenants is that 'the construction process was hell, but we were treated with great respect and courtesy from your crew,'" Lin says. Fine Line is also uniquely experienced in building throughout the Bay Area, including projects in Oakland and San Jose. This has made Fine Line well equipped to handle unique challenges as they come up, and there are plenty of those in San Francisco. "One of the biggest challenges was access to the building," Lin explains. Indeed, San Francisco is the second-densest U.S. city behind New York. "Often times we are having to work without an open area to bring in materials or equipment," he adds. "Also, while looking out Winter 2018 www.mhb-magazine.com 123