Smart Buildings
“The key to the growth of sustainability is in the compelling economic arguments behind it,” Hayward explains. A 75-mile drive north of Santa Barbara, Hayward’s Solar Truss plant in Santa Maria is hardly on the map of the stars, but hundreds of architects, builders, designers, and lumbermen from Modesto, Calif., to Moscow are answering Hayward’s invitation to witness the success of a building that can generate revenue by simply existing.
“A green building is never just sitting there,” Hayward says of the $12.5 million plant that opened in June 2002. “The skylights in the roof alone save us an annual cost of $16,000 a year by not turning the lights on during the day,” says Hayward. “That’s the kind of compelling economic argument that will make sustainability become mainstream. It’s first cost versus life cost. When someone visiting the facility sees the skylights save $16,000 a year, and the skylights cost $25,000, they say, ‘Yeah, I’ll do that.’ I don’t think any CEO in the country could visit a green building and not take home at least two or three [cost-saving measures].”
In addition to the skylights, the Santa Maria truss facility boasts a host of environmentally and economically friendly design features. Permeable water pavers decrease runoff and reduce real estate expenses required for water retention basins. Additional runoff from the 55,000-square-foot roof is stored in underground cisterns for landscape irrigation, lending to a near-zero reliance on public water. During the day, a roof array of 900 photovoltaic solar panels generates more than enough electricity to power the facility (the equivalent of 115 homes),and whatever juice the truss plant does not consume is pumped back into the local power grid, generating an energy credit for the company.
On the opposite side of the LBM supply spectrum, but equally as impressive, the Hayward Design Center in Santa Barbara epitomizes the company’s commitment to stay green while maximizing sales and profits from windows, doors, and cabinets. Opened in May 2003 and featuring similar permeable paved lots and self-irrigation, the Design Center features an impressive façade of FSC-certified lumber and a “green screen” awning of live plants that shade the building and reduce energy costs. “When you see it, it is different, it’s not like anything else you’ll see in the industry,” says Hayward. “I think it really nails the segment. It makes an exciting place for a builder to bring his customer or for a customer to walk into and see a product collection.”
In fact, the company created a patent-pending modular display system with 25 movable panels to showcase more than 25 door, window, and hardware suppliers on more than 280 lineal feet of combined display space. The Design Center also offers 2,500 square feet of kitchen and bath cabinet displays, 1,000 square feet of display space for Hayward’s EcoTimber environmentally friendly–flooring division, and meeting areas and workstations for builders, designers, and salespeople to work with customers.
“As a company, we’re interested in innovative ideas and bringing new things to the industry and making the industry better,” says Kent Bass, manager of Hayward’s Santa Barbara lumberyard and co-creator of the Hayward Design business unit that includes design centers in Santa Barbara, Pasa Robles, and Pacific Grove. “We want people to walk in the front door and say, ‘Wow!'” says Bass of the $1 million investment in the design center. Based on the success of the Santa Barbara facility, Hayward says the company expects to add an additional similar design center to the Central Coast market within two years.
The Santa Maria truss facility also is an investment in the future of Central California construction markets. Although the plant’s current operations are generating approximately $6 million in annual sales, the Hayward team expects the components market to grow—and the company has targeted a 50 percent market share in the region equal to approximately $20 million a year within the next four years. “The truss plant is a symbol of a forward-thinking company,” says Hayward Building Systems Division operations manager Randy Harris. “Hayward is thinking about where we are going, not just where we are.”
With Centex leading the charge, the construction services focus is likely to pay off as big builders finally make their way into California’s smart-growth boutique markets. “You have to invest a lot of time and money into this market to make it work, and there are not a lot of production builders in the market now, but we are hearing rumblings, and we’ll probably be head-to-head with some more of the big boys soon,” Reed says. “They can’t stay away from here forever.” While lots will likely top out at 200 units per subdivision, builders like Centex will still come to the Central Coast expecting value-added supply. As the truss-hungry production builders arrive, Hayward will greet them with the engineered wood and litany of permit-share services it has spent the past decade developing.
Smart Growth
“When we moved into town they were in our face right away,” attests Reed. “They are quite obviously very bright people who wanted to align themselves with us early on, and [as far as production building is concerned] that was a smart move.” Now three years into the market, Centex has relied on Hayward for supply from Santa Barbara to Paso Robles as the builder experienced 30 percent to 50 percent to 75 percent growth year over year. “When you’re starting from nothing, those numbers are easy,” Reed says. “Still, Central California is largely a growth-restricted area that presents challenges to the production builder.”
With Hayward providing lumber, dry-wall, and trusses to Centex’s two current Central California projects, Reed feels confident the builder can meet those challenges on the supply and logistics side of the operations. “We don’t really have any downtime in that regard,” he says.”[Hayward’s] serviceability on a real-time basis is huge for us. They are so available with impeccable service from their branch managers all the way down to the people that interact with our managers in the field. You make a phone call and they are at your job at the drop of a hat to help you out in any way, shape, or form.”
Additionally, when faced with a mandate from Centex Corporate to use environmentally certified lumber, Reed found that Hayward was the only supplier in the market with a consistent inventory to pull from. “They continue to offer us unique services and opportunities, including installation on windows and trim,” Reed says. “That’s a benefit we are considering tapping into. Whether or not we have their installers put in the windows is yet to be seen, but I know eventually we will be buying windows from them in addition to our [lumber, truss, and drywall packages].”
With installation or without, that’s great news for Hayward, where the sustainable growth model commands both a growing customer base and a deeper share of customer loyalty. “The good news is we are always going to have building [activity in Central California]. The bad news is it is never going to go like Las Vegas,” Hayward explains. “So our opportunity to grow our company has always been to sell more share of permit and be able to really sell the doors and windows and cabinets and trusses, the foundation contractor, and any other segment that we wanted to get after.”
