Photo by Small Giants

The facility will also be the home to ElectraMeccanica’s first U.S.-based engineering technical center, including 22,000 sq ft of office space and 19,000 sq ft of lab space. An office portion of the building features large breakrooms, meeting rooms and restrooms.

Completed below budget and ahead of schedule in October 2022, the facility will employ 500 people and has the capacity to produce 20,000 vehicles a year. To maintain the client’s asset-light model, ElectraMeccanica will lease the building from the developer. The facility will also be able to host other companies as a contract manufacturing partner.

Photo by Small Giants

With the amount of electrical needs of this facility, the contractor’s intensive preconstruction efforts helped anticipate procurement issues with electrical components. During construction, the contractor also shifted the building sequencing to accommodate tenant improvement design, working on both the shell and the interior features simultaneously. This allowed crews to install electrical boxes and other utility elements in the floor before placing the concrete slab, for example.

Although the facility was fully leased before construction began, as the project neared completion, ElectraMeccanica decided to make the project its headquarters. An established relationship between the contractor and the city of Mesa helped speed permitting and adjust schedules to accommodate the client’s evolving needs as the team completed different phases of the building.

ElectraMeccanica’s headquarters is the fifth electric vehicle manufacturing facility to open in Arizona since 2016, with the state ranking seventh nationally for electric vehicle adoption.

Photo by Small Giants