Guerdon Modular Buildings

Guerdon builds volumetric modular buildings at a factory on Federal Way in Boise, Idaho. Lad Dawson founded the original company, Guerdon Enterprises, in 2001; an investor group he led reformed the business as Guerdon, LLC in 2020 after buying the assets back. Crews frame, wire, plumb and finish complete modules indoors, then truck them to site for setting, which lets foundation work run at the same time. The company focuses on multi-story permanent buildings: apartments, hotels, student housing, assisted living and remote workforce camps. Cubix in Seattle, a micro-suite apartment building, is one of more than 200 completed projects. Guerdon says the plant can turn out a million square feet a year, and it holds CSA certification for work shipped into Canada.

The shipping map is the practical constraint on any modular manufacturer, and Guerdon names it plainly: ten western states – California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, North Dakota, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming – plus Canada, where the plant’s CSA certification lets modules cross the border.

Beyond Cubix in Seattle, the completed list runs to Eviva in Sacramento, the Domain apartment complex in San Jose, a Home2 Suites hotel in San Francisco, the four-building Union Flats community in Union City, California, and Cheecham Lodge at Anzac, Alberta – the last of those a workforce accommodation job of the sort that first built the Boise plant’s reputation.

Schedule compression comes from running two critical paths at once. Site preparation and foundation work proceed while modules are framed, wired, plumbed and finished indoors, so the two streams meet at set rather than queue behind each other. Guerdon also notes that many of the buildings it produces go on to earn LEED Platinum certification.

The company has added a software layer on the front end. Modufy, its proprietary AI tool, takes a parcel of land and proposes an optimised building for the developer – a feasibility pass before design fees start running.

Markets served are multifamily housing, hotels, assisted living, student housing, affordable and supportive housing, and remote temporary workforce accommodation. Across those sectors the company puts its record at over 200 completed large-scale volumetric projects, with the factory and corporate office both at 5556 Federal Way in Boise.

One naming note for anyone searching records: the legal entity behind the Guerdon Modular Buildings brand is Guerdon, LLC.