Temporary Walls for Commercial Construction

Hourigan, an integrated construction and development firm based in Virginia, specializes in healthcare, corporate, government and specialty construction. The James Center is a 1M-square-foot Class A office and retail space located in Richmond’s financial district comprised of two towers. Both James Center buildings are uniquel…

W.E. Bowman, based in Richmond Virginia, is recognized as a leader in healthcare construction. Their clients include Southside Regional Medical, Riverside Health Systems, Central Health Systems, Virginia Commonwealth University Health System, Universal Health Systems, and University of Virginia Health Systems. “We considered o…

Medtronic is among the world’s largest medical technology, services, and solutions companies, with more than 370 locations worldwide. J. Calnan & Associates (JC&A) serves as the construction management team for renovation projects at the company’s Danvers, Massachusetts facility. “Medtronic was extremely pleased we…

Fresenius Medical Care (FMC) is the world’s largest provider of services for individuals with renal diseases and other chronic conditions. J. Calnan & Associates (JC&A) of Boston provided pre-construction and construction management services for FMC’s US corporate headquarters expansion in Waltham, Massachusetts. “…

Oxford Networks, now FirstLight, offers a robust suite of advanced telecommunications products, including data centers with best-of-breed technologies. “The ability for the STARC System is adapt to whatever our customer needs are is a real selling point.” John Coray, Operations Manager, Oxford Networks The Challenge Oxford N…

“The selling point to us was the look. For this project, the job site was adjacent to the lobby, where everyone first walks into the facility. It needed to look good.” John Noone, Vice President of Field Operations, J. Calnan & Associates The Challenge The first renovations at Malden Catholic’s school included building…

The longer a construction project takes, the more it costs to complete. While big jobs take time, there are ways to decrease your downtime and increase your profitability significantly. One easy way to make this happen is to leveragemodular wall systems.

Contractors can spend a lot of time and money putting up temporary walls or barriers during construction or renovation projects. There’s the cost of materials, the labor to install, and the expense of tearing it down, disposing of it, and cleaning it up afterward.

We spend a lot of time on this blog discussing how our modular wall systems are particularly well-suited to healthcare construction and renovation projects. Although we’re obviously proud of the fact that our ICRA-compliant RealWall™, LiteBarrier™ and FireblockWall™ reusable temporary containment protects patients, caregivers and staff from dangerous construction dust and risks associated with fire and smoke, there’s another significant market that routinely leverages our solutions for very specific use cases: commercial offices looking for wall partitions to divide occupied areas.

Today’s occupied renovation contractors are experiencing a new level of unpredictability: supply chain inconsistencies and unforeseen price escalation, building owner uncertainties and schedule changes, labor shortages and unprecedented gross margin challenges. Exactly the kind of big-picture outlook you’d expect to make contractors eye small-but-meaningful changes that could take some of the sting out of their day-to-day operations.

When conducting an occupied renovation in a hospital, a one-hour fire-rated temporary construction wall is often required by national or regional jurisdictions, particularly when a working sprinkler system is not in place. Requirements and testing specifications can vary by state, city, hospital and even by project – and can get a little complicated. One thing is clear: questions from our customers about fire-rated temporary walls have spiked significantly over the last few years. We suspect the rise in inquiries is driven by a combination of factors, such as increased fire-rated barrier requirement awareness and a realization of the lack of options.

For an industry that strives to be on-time and under-budget, it’s difficult to plan and execute in a time of instability. All over the country and across professions we’re seeing layoffs, furloughs, new work protocols, office spaces downsizing due to remote working, fewer projects, stretched supply chains, uncertain start dates, canceled jobs, and fewer jobs in backlog due to COVID-19. 

In today’s economy, airports have become more than centers of transportation. They have emerged as bustling centers of commerce and development. With the latter come renovation and construction projects that are commonly undertaken amongst immense crowds on their way somewhere . Temporary airport walls become necessary, if not essential, to complete these projects successfully and without incident or concerns for liability.