Boise firm forges ahead with new headquarters

The company motto is “forge ahead,” which makes sense since the firm is the Forge Building Company of Boise. Over 200 people showed up to celebrate the opening of Forge’s new headquarters on Bogus Basin Road on July 13. Both the building and the company are unique, even for the edgy, innovative Treasure Valley.

The building

“So this is not a new building. This was an existing building that we remodeled,” Forge President and Co-Founder Hamish Bell told the Idaho Business Review (IBR). “It was all open plan. Hummel Architects used to own this building. We put in a bunch of individual offices and opened some stuff up … We have our subcontractors coming in and out of the office (and) we have customers coming in here, so we have a big, dedicated conference room.”

The new headquarters is a two-story, 12,152-square-foot structure with a remodel that was guided by Boise architect Jeff Hatch of Hatch Design Architecture, which Forge has described as “a standout building and iconic in its design.”

The new building doubles the size of the company’s old headquarters. “There’s between 25 to 30 (employees using the building), depending on who’s in the office that day,” Bell remarked. “We’re very proud of the building. We’ve tried to make it a unique, comfortable space for our employees to enjoy with us.”

Forge did the remodel itself in under four months, using its own staff and subcontractors to do the work. The firm bought the property last summer.

The firm

Forge started in 2007, founded by Bell and the firm’s vice president, Hayden Farrell. The two share an interesting story. When they were younger, they were on the same rugby team in New Zealand. They both landed in Boise in the 2000s, fell in love with the city, worked in the construction business, and still played rugby together. Then, they decided to start their own construction firm together, which is how Forge got its start.

Forge started out specializing in building storage facilities, a construction niche that Farrell picked up from working with his contractor father, Glen Farrell. Since 2007, the pair has expanded the firm from a West Coast firm to building projects throughout the country. Forge markets itself as having “a strong focus on self-storage and innovative building solutions.”

Forge employs over 200 people. In the decade and a half that the company has been in business, it has completed over 500 construction jobs and built over 50 million square feet of structures. Though the company has built hundreds of storage facilities, it has built everything from gyms to car dealerships, which fall into its specialty in pre-engineered steel buildings.