Located in the northwestern corner of the beautiful Santa Clara County, Palo Alto is a luxurious city and a principal city of Silicon Valley. Opening up a retail venture in the area serves as a wonderful opportunity for growth. For this reason, it is a hub for several high-tech companies, large businesses, and wealthy residents. 

If you’re looking to build your new business in the area, the list below includes the best retail contractors in Palo Alto, California, curated based on their experience and the quality and complexity of their work, as well as their ability to create retail spaces that fit Palo Alto’s landscape and your target customers’ lifestyles.

W.L. Butler

1629 Main St., Redwood City, CA 94063

Through diligence and strong customer relations, W.L. Butler has remained one of the area’s highly-respected, mid-sized general contractors with projects throughout the Golden State. With forty-six years of experience, it has built projects for several big names and Fortune 500 companies like Target, Costco, Gilead, Charles Schwab, and Samsung.

For its exceptional work, it’s been recognized as one of the Top Family-Owned Businesses in the 2021 San Francisco Business Times and one of the Top Corporate Philanthropists by Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal in 2020. It has received awards like the 2021 Gold Nugget Award Best Design for Energy Efficiency and the 2021 Silver Spur Award.

Featured here is W.L. Butler’s handiwork in the Fresh Market project. For this project, the team worked on the interior demo and turn-key improvements for two specialty grocery stores. In the Southern California project, the team converted a former market, updated its facade, added in upgrades, and improved its landscaping for more convenient shopping. Meanwhile, in the Northern California project, a 20,987 square feet historical building was renovated to create a more welcoming and clean facade and store layout.

Build Group

1210 Coleman Ave., Santa Clara, CA 95050

Build Group is a highly reputable contractor with a deep knowledge of the construction industry, and it has been named by ENR as a top contractor, the largest commercial contractor in the Bay Area, the Healthiest Employer, the fastest-growing private company, as well as the best place to work. With fourteen years in the business, it has built for a wide variety of project types such as multi-family residential, commercial office spaces, restaurants, hospitality, and high-end retail projects.

It has a team of over 400 employees who are builders at heart. This is demonstrated by the high level of service and excellent handiwork it provides. As a testament to its expertise, over eight percent of Build Group’s stems comes from satisfied repeat clients who trust Build Group’s ability to execute their vision for their business, particularly in the retail market.

Below is the lovely Carolina Herrera project in San Francisco. Each detail of the clothing store—from its large mirrors to its sleek wooden details —creates a sophisticated atmosphere for shoppers to enjoy.

Truebeck Construction

951 Mariners Island Blvd., Suite 700, San Mateo, CA 94404

Founded in 2007, Truebeck Construction has created well-built spaces for living, working, healing, and learning for fourteen years now. In its practice, it recognizes that what it does makes significant impacts on the built environment of the future.  Truebeck Construction is driven by its desire to improve its practices while creating remarkable places in the communities it serves, which is why its work is LEED-accredited and built with elevated standards.

During its fourteen years in the business, it has been recognized as the 2019 ENR Top 100 Construction Management-at-Risk Firms, ENR Top 100 Design-Build Firms, and as one of Top 100 Bay Area Corporate Philanthropists from the San Francisco Business Times.

Below is the stunning and expansive Uptown Station project. This 333,000 square foot project is a major overhaul of the seven-story mixed-use historic building. This stunning renovation project now contains an abundance of natural light, high ceilings, exposed brick walls, expansive retail spaces, public amenities, a roof deck, and a sprawling eighty-five-foot, five-story atrium/lobby space. This building was also designed and built to feature innovative and environmentally responsible features that have earned this building its LEED Silver certification.

South Bay Construction

1711 Dell Ave., Campbell, CA 95008

A leader in the Northern California construction development scene, South Bay Construction has an established reputation, years of experience in building offices, high-tech facilities, hospitality projects, mixed-use construction, and retail. With its decades of work in the area, it has developed a deep understanding of the construction issues in Bay Area development, and it is especially equipped to address the needs of clients looking to build new retail projects in the area.

Committed to providing high levels of service at a competitive price, South Bay Construction is a reliable contractor that works with the most talented and value-driven professionals in the area. In 2016, it was recognized with the AIA Santa Clara Valley People’s Choice Award.

The Keen project featured below showcases South Bay Construction’s fine handiwork in building for retail. Built with CAL Green Tier 1 standards, this 2,722 square foot shop can be found in Palo Alto with the majority of the beautiful decor made from recycled materials from a junkyard. It has a down-to-earth atmosphere, and each element was built with a natural aesthetic in mind, which reflects the lifestyle of the company’s customers.

Tico Construction

1585 Terminal Avenue, San Jose, CA 95112

For the last thirty-three years, Tico Construction has provided Silicon Valley with quality construction services at competitive pricing. With every project, it strives to perform following the project scope and finish it on time and within budget.

The company is led by John Marmesh, who has extensive experience in providing preconstruction and construction services for private business, industrial, institutional facilities, and clean-tech markets. With three decades on the job, he has the expertise to minimize costs and optimize efficiency when building projects. He has also completed the ISPE Professional Development Training course and the CGMP for Facility Design Construction and Maintenance course and is involved in several construction associations.

The Cole European – Walnut Creek project featured below is a great example of Tico Construction’s work on retail buildings, particularly auto dealerships. It is a sleek and modern building that utilizes stone details to contrast beautifully with Jaguar’s lovely cars.