A family-owned business in Marana has done more than move beyond simple modular construction: It’s done away with the term altogether.
ESB Design + Build — formerly ESB Modular Manufacturing — offers custom-built commercial structures ranging from single classrooms to three-story medical facilities and specialized military buildings. The decades-old business includes three generations of women and several members of their extended family.
“The way that modulars have evolved, it’s not just a portable little building anymore,” said Alan Johnson, an ESB foreman who has been with company since 1991. “These are all permanent buildings. We’re able to create a really nice product for people at a decent price.”
Pima Community College, Tucson Unified School District and several other local schools and organizations are turning to ESB when it comes to additional classrooms or an extra set of restrooms.
But increasingly the company is doing more complex projects, such as a fire-watch tower in Yosemite National Park and a state-of-the art medical complex in Tuba City in Coconino County.
The company started out small more than 30 years ago, when Cecil and Pat See moved here from Michigan. Their daughter, Lois Morey, said her father worked in construction back in the Midwest but came to Arizona to escape harsh winters and a depressed economy.
“They moved because you can do more work out here in construction without the really heavy winters,” said Morey, now the company’s chief executive officer. Her father died in 2001, and her mother still does payrolls and tracks the company’s finances.
With an annual growth rate of about 7 percent, ESB uses its 44,000-square-foot facility at 11280 W. Adonis Road to construct buildings that are then moved on-site. At any given time, 32 to 50 people work full time for the company, including inmates from a nearby minimum-security prison.
A recent ratings report for the General Services Administration gave ESB a top rating for nonresidential construction and included a survey of 19 customers who all gave positive feedback for order accuracy, delivery and timeliness and product quality.
Lois Morey said it was her brother Paul See’s idea to start manufacturing instead of just doing remodels and installations, which is what the family focused on initially. Getting the business to what it is today was “very hard work,” she said.
“In the beginning, we went months without pay,” she said. All of the money was going back into the business, she said.
But things turned around quickly once they built their own manufacturing plant in 1995. Since then, they’ve constructed hundreds of buildings not only for sites in Arizona, but in New Mexico, Nevada and California.
The structures are still carried by truck, but they arrive without a floor in place so they can be welded to a concrete foundation. Drywall and roofing is also put in place on-site.
The buildings cost about two-thirds of what on-site construction costs, Lois Morey said, and can be designed and built in about half the time normal construction takes.
“We pride ourselves on being able to blend with existing architecture,” she said.
Next on the list will be retirement centers and apartment complexes, said Lois Morey’s daughter, Erica Morey, who is the company’s business and development director.
Construction is underway in the warehouse on a new fellowship hall for the Santa Rose Mission in Tucson. Eventually, three 70-by-14-foot pieces will be moved to the site, where they’ve already been prepping for utilities.
The total construction time for a project this size averages about a month in the factory and another two months at the site, Erica Morey said.
Russ Federico, executive director of operational support for Marana Unified School District, said ESB has added six classrooms, new student bathrooms and a ticket booth during the last couple of years. The total was around $1.2 million.
“There was a lot of utility challenges and underground things that needed to be done to make it work,” he said, “and they did a great job.”
When it was decided a new restroom would be added to the east-side campus of Pima Community College, John Bracamonte looked to ESB and spent $148,000, some of it on extensive earthwork to meet code.
“They took care of the plans, the permits, the fire marshal and quite a few other services,” said Bracamonte, the facilities project manager. The company kept to schedule, he said. “It looks just like a regular building and really matches our campus.”
Lois Morey said working with family is rewarding, and she only wishes her father were here to see their progress.
“Since he died is when we’ve really blossomed and he didn’t get to see it,” she said. “We miss him every day.”
