Looking to expand its services and grow across one of the most important markets on the West Coast, San Francisco Bay Area-based Skyline Construction has announced its acquisition of San Diego-based Prevost Construction.
This opportunity marks a milestone for the organization, which will further strengthen Skyline’s reach in the region’s life science market, while providing new opportunities to Prevost Construction, as well, said Skyline CEO Jessica Carps.
“Skyline is always looking for opportunities to partner with other organizations and other markets because one of our core goals is ultimately for us to be able to partner with our customers and to service them in all the places where they have construction needs,” Carps said. “In particular, we’ve been looking for an organization to supplement our growing presence in the life sciences space.”
With more than 30 years of history in San Diego, Prevost Construction has a large presence in the life science sector. The company also serves other areas across the construction industry including building repositioning, work in the creative office space and the multifamily sector.
The company was founded in 1989 and has served the San Diego area as a local-owned, private enterprise ever since. Jamie Prevost has been its president and CEO since 2008.
“What drew me to Skyline is their Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP), which rewards the collective hard work of the entire team through 100 percent employee ownership,” Prevost said. “I am honored to be able to provide a long-term, sustainable platform for our employees, while simultaneously being able to scale our relationship with existing customers.”
Prevost will continue in his role as the leader of the organization and will be responsible for all management and day-to-day operations, as well as client service across the region.
According to Carps, the merging of companies was a perfect fit due to similarities in workplace culture and Prevost’s focus on the needs of its clients and employees. At the same time, the acquisition will give Prevost the chance to partner with customers on larger projects while also being able to take advantage of Skyline’s Corporate Services team, which provides assistance in various areas of construction, technology, human resources, finances, IT and more.
For Skyline, the acquisition will allow the company to further its nationwide expansion. The company currently operates nine offices across the country, including in the Puget Sound, Bay Area, Southern California and Chicago. Since its founding in 1996, the company has been growing rapidly and is currently valued at $700 million, according to its website.
Skyline first entered the San Diego market in 2020, and it has maintained its focus since that time on this important market in Southern California.
“The strength of the life sciences space and the growth of the market in San Diego really just can’t be ignored,” Carps said. “You have this confluence of events going on down there that has just accelerated over time. You have the infrastructure from UCSD, a large public research institution that is providing not just that kind of research backbone but also talent.”
Over the past few years, San Diego has maintained a strong life science market, consistently ranked third in the country following the Bay Area and Boston. According to a second-quarter San Diego life science market report from CBRE, more than six million square feet of lab space inventory has been added to the market since 2015.
Despite the increase in inventory, vacancy remains low at 3.6 percent as demand in the region only heightens.
Still, developers continue to push out new projects, with 3.16 million square feet currently under construction, according to the report. Additionally, there are about 3.89 million square feet of planned construction projects, 35 percent of which have already been pre-leased.
