NBCU Area 51 Production Support Building

The Area 51 Production Support Building is a 23,370 square foot facility at NBC Universal. The three-story building includes green rooms, dressing rooms, meeting rooms, and an exterior façade that mirrors that of New York City. It was built among movie production sets (including that of Harry Potter), downtown street sets, and two new 18,000 square-foot soundstages that were built concurrently.

Raymond’s Southern California region was awarded the project by Matt Construction and can greatly attribute the award to a creative and cost saving alternate proposed by Raymond Senior Estimator Jeff Lacourciere. The original design of the building included exterior metal panels and Raymond was able to offer high density foam and FRP casted shapes painted to look like metal in their place. The casted FRP and foam shapes offered the project a large savings and at the project’s completion, the Architect Bastien & Associates expressed their acceptance and eagerness to use the alternate in future designs.

Raymond’s full scope of work on the Area 51 Production Support Building included interior and exterior framing, sheathing, EIFS, FRP shapes, and paint. The project schedule was aggressive with just four months to complete before NBC’s live version of the movie “Hairspray” would be filmed and aired. Raymond worked with Matt Construction to perform at an accelerated rate and was able to meet all deadlines through prompt execution of change orders, weekly coordination meetings, and daily internal team meetings. Communication with the entire project team was key to coordinate material lead times, FRP design and shop drawing approval, fabrication times, as well as adjustments to the exterior installation. Raymond is proud to have been on this project with Matt Construction and successfully deliver the Area 51 Production Support Building to NBCU.

NBC Universal – Owner
Matt Construction – General Contractor
Bastien & Associates, Inc. – Architect
The Raymond Group – Framing, Sheathing, EIFS, FRP Shapes, Paint
Brand Scaffolding – Scaffolding
DSM Construction – Calking
Moonlight Molds – Casted Shapes