Service Planning & Design Team Delivers on Senior Housing in Chico

By Jennifer Robison

The Butte County communities of Chico and Paradise are separated by 15 miles — but tightly connected through close-knit interpersonal relationships.

“We all have relatives and friends in each place,” said David Barrios, a Chico-based industrial power engineer on PG&E’s Service Planning & Design team. “Chico and Paradise have always been sister communities.”

That’s how hundreds of seniors displaced by the 2018 Camp Fire ended up in Chico, where they have family, friends and other important social connections. It’s a population surge reflected in the new-service applications coming across Barrios’ desk these days.

“There’s just a huge need, and senior housing has become one of my main project-application types,” he said.

Barrios, an 18-year PG&E veteran, would need all the expertise he’s developed to help one vital community get across its high-stakes finish line on the tightest of deadlines.

‘Communication and coordination’

The 60-unit Senior Apartments at B20 had been under construction on Chico’s east side since early 2022, with a plan to be energized in December 2022. Like many recent local senior-housing developments, the project was made possible by federal tax credits earmarked for disaster relief following the Camp Fire.

Those tax credits came with conditions, though.

In Senior Apartments at B20’s case, the community needed to be ready for occupancy by mid-December 2023 to obtain city inspections and qualify for the federal assistance.

Initially, construction stayed on track to beat the deadline by a year, said Phil Strawn, a project manager with Modern Building Company, which built the apartments. But the supply-chain issues that halted construction projects nationwide following the COVID-19 pandemic also affected Senior Apartments at B20: Modern Building couldn’t get the electrical panel it needed to energize the community.

Finding the panel would take a months-long, nationwide search. The company eventually found a suitable panel, but it wouldn’t be available until November 2023 — nearly a year behind schedule.

Adding to the timing challenge, PG&E would need to energize the building by Dec. 5 for it to complete state and local inspections for its Certificate of Occupancy. That meant the team had three weeks—less than half the typical time needed — to plan and design a service connection featuring the custom panel, new transformers and dozens of electric meters.

Missing the deadline would be devastating. Beyond keeping affordable housing units for displaced seniors off the market, the developer, K&M Butte Developers, would lose $20 million in federal tax credits for the community’s construction and go into default. To recoup losses, creditors could have pursued the property and developers’ personal assets.

So, PG&E and Modern Building arranged a meeting with PG&E construction and metering crews, building contractors and state and local inspections officials to discuss how to achieve the quick turnaround.

“Everybody committed to a micro-schedule broken down by half days,” Strawn said. “There was a lot of communication and coordination. David was very upfront about the need to plan and overcommunicate and get buy-in from everyone from PG&E to the city to the joint trenching contractor. He really pushed the coordination side to make sure everyone was on the same page for us.”

Putting customers first

The week after Thanksgiving, PG&E’s effort kicked into high gear. The teams met several times a week to discuss where they were in the new-service connections process.

Field metering crew leader Gabe Rhodes tracked down confirmation that the electrical panel met PG&E and regulatory codes. Crews then swapped out temporary power equipment with the new, custom electrical panel. They installed a new transformer and built, installed and set 60 apartment meters and five meters for retail and restaurant spaces on the development’s ground floor.

Rhodes scheduled the work for his regular day off and got permission from his supervisor to oversee the installation.

“Gabe was a hero,” Barrios said. “He managed the legwork on all of the panel and metering options.”

Strawn remembers seeing Rhodes at the job site on weekends as well.

“Gabe really delivered. He did pre-inspections to make sure there’d be no hiccups during installation,” Phil said. “He said crews would set all 65 meters in one day — and they did it.”

Barrios credited an all-local, Chico-based team that also included Nate Fuchs, a Maintenance & Construction coordinator in PG&E’s Electric Distribution Operations; engineering estimators Bryan Case and Nancy Lor; electric distribution engineers Ryan Moretti and Chris Spears; Service Planning & Design supervisor Bill Powell; and Service Planning & Design manager Dave Weisbrod.

“As the industrial project engineer on this community, David did a great job aligning metering, construction and the developer with the work that needed to be completed, and when it needed to be completed by,” Weisbrod said. “The biggest success factors on this project were communication and making sure everyone stayed aligned at all times on the work plan.”

Barrios credited Weisbrod and other Service Planning & Design leaders for their commitment as well.

“Our leaders are amazing. This project was a perfect example of how our leaders put the customer first and position PG&E as the customer’s partner,” he said. “This new-service connection was made possible by our leadership constantly saying, ‘We’re going to make this happen.’”

Added Strawn: “Everybody committed to this project, everybody met their commitments and every single piece fell into line.”

Projects move forward

Nor did Senior Apartments at B20 waste any time providing new homes for seniors in need.

As soon as the electrical equipment arrived and connection work began, the community began taking lease applications. In just three days, the apartment building was essentially leased up, Strawn said. Residents began moving in in February.

About 75 percent of the building’s new residents had sought leases shortly after the project was announced in 2022 and waited through the year-long delay.

“They lived with friends, relatives or in campers,” Strawn said. “Some of them had moved to other parts of the state while they waited. It’s rewarding to provide them the opportunity to come home to the Chico-Paradise area.”

Modern Building Company, whose history with PG&E goes back to building Quonset huts for the company’s Feather River Project in the late 1940s, is also working on Olive Ranch Apartments in Oroville — another project to replace senior housing lost in the Camp Fire.

Barrios worked on Olive Ranch as well, winning additional plaudits from Strawn, who said “PG&E has also delivered on” that project. Once the 51-unit community is complete this spring, Modern will have built six much-needed affordable, replacement-stock multifamily housing projects totaling roughly 500 units across Butte County.

Said Barrios: “The need for low-income and senior housing in the area is tremendous, and we’re proud to continue to help fulfill that need for our customers and our community.”