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Featured Stories

Top Green Designers
11/01/2010
Texas Construction presents its first ever Top Green Design Firms list. The list ranks the top 25 design firms in Texas based on the amount of revenue each company reported earning from its green-building sector billings in 2009.

Image: Marmon Mok

Corgan designed a renovation of the bone-marrow transplant unit at Medical City Dallas.

Health Care Market On Sound Ground
11/01/2010 By Debra Wood
Health care remains one the state’s stronger market segments, with several megajobs under way at urban hospital campuses or soon to break ground. A few other projects are moving forward.

Photo: Corgan Associates

11/01/10	Greening Texas Schools By Bruce Buckley With more than a decade of data on sustainability documented at pilot projects around the state, Texas school districts are buying into the promise of green building for K-12 facilities in a big way.
11/01/10	Parkland: A ‘Hospital for the Future’ By Debra Wood When an ambulance rushed fatally wounded President John F. Kennedy to Parkland Hospital in Dallas in 1963, the facility sported the latest equipment and a skilled team of clinicians.
11/01/10	South Texas Market Report By Debra Wood Construction activity in South Texas has fallen off, mirroring other parts of the country.
10/01/10	The Top 95: Texas’ Leading Design Firms of 2010 Texas Construction presents its annual Top Design feature of 95 participating firms ranked by instate revenue from the previous calendar or fiscal year for work performed in Texas.
10/01/10	K-12 Market Report By Debra Wood Many school districts, with money from bond programs approved before the economy soured, are still letting projects, but fewer districts are asking voters to approve bond issues.
10/01/10	High-Rise Peaks By Debra Wood Even during the recession, a few high-rise projects are under construction in Texas and Oklahoma, but those either started before the economic meltdown or are funded with the help of public dollars.
09/01/10	Bridge Building Buzzing By Debra Wood Texas and Oklahoma are in the midst of building bridges and implementing replacement and rehabilitation programs, many of which are projects fueled by American Recovery and Reinvestment Act...
09/01/10	Texas Firms Trailblazing With BIM Bruce Buckley Only a few years ago, building information modeling was considered an emerging technology, but today it is rapidly taking a prominent place in the toolboxes of Texas designers and contractors.
09/01/10	Regional Report: East Texas By Debra Wood Construction remains off from the boom times of a few years ago, but there are glimmers of hope in Houston, as well as worries related to BP’s oil spill.
09/01/10	Storm of Contracts By Angelle Bergeron Contractors can anticipate a flurry of projects over the next year as the Texas Dept. of Rural Affairs (TDRA) awards $1.5 billion in public projects to rebuild areas hit hard by hurricanes Dolly and Ike.
07/01/10	2010 Texas Contractor of the Year: Archer Western By Debra Wood Archer Western Contractors of Arlington has grown significantly since entering the Texas market 16 years ago.
07/01/10	Balfour Beatty Expands Texas Operations By Debra Wood In 2009, SpawMaxwell was tapped as Texas Construction’s 2009 Contractor of the Year and praised for its entrepreneurial spirit and flat ownership structure.
07/01/10	Top Specialty Contractors The 120 firms in Texas Construction’s 12th annual Top Specialty Contractors ranking collectively performed about $5 billion worth of work in the state in 2009.
07/01/10	New System Monitors Asphalt Mat By Mike Larson As asphalt is paved, aggregate can segregate, making weak spots in the pavement. Though hard to see, segregation can be detected by checking for differences in temperatures as the asphalt is laid.
07/01/10	Central Texas Report By Debra Wood Central Texas remains one of the brighter regions for construction in the nation, with many public projects moving forward as well as a few private jobs.
06/01/10	Getting There By Debra Wood While many states have tapped private capital to build roads and bridges, Texas has shown less enthusiasm for alternative funding mechanisms, allowing expiration of the Dept. of Transportation’s...
06/01/10	Southern Methodist University Projects By Debra Wood Donation-supported, new projects keep moving forward at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.
06/01/10	Top Project Starts - 1 to 25 Top Project Starts - 26 to 55 Twenty-five projects out of the 55 that made the print issue of our annual Top Projects Starts. The list here includes those as well as the additional 30 in order of total construction cost.
05/21/10	West Texas Market Report By Debra Wood Although construction activity has slowed in the Panhandle and West Texas, new projects continue to surface and work continues.
05/01/10	A River Runs Through It By Angelle Bergeron By fall, kayakers will enjoy the new waterfalls and whitewater in the Trinity River as part of the recreation portion of the $2.5- to $3-billion city of Dallas Trinity River Corridor project that is 20 mi long and...
05/01/10	Texas’ Top Green Contractors Texas Construction presents our 2nd annual ranking of Top Green Contractors. This list is the result of an annual survey of Texas firms that makes our Top Contractors ranking, featured in every April issue.
05/01/10	2010 Texas Owner of the Year By Bruce Buckley Planners at Texas Children’s Hospitals think big. Already the largest children’s hospital in the United States, the Houston-based hospital set out to further build on its vast resources with Vision 2010,...
05/01/10	Brushy Creek Among New Water Treatment Plants By Debra Wood The water will pass through several open flocculation, sedimentation and filtration basins, a disinfection system and an enclosed clear well. An elevated storage tank will hold water ready for distribution.
04/01/10	Texas’ 2010 Top Contractors: Fighting Back in a Tough Economy By Debra Wood Diversification, backlogs and sharp pencils have kept some Texas contractors at the top of their game. A snapshot of this is seen in the profiles of the following six firms.
04/01/10	Mixed-Use Projects a Mixed Bag By Debra Wood The 125 Texas firms in our 15th annual Top Contractor rankings collectively billed about $24 billion in the state in 2009, a decrease of about $1 billion reported from the 2008, when we listed an additional five...
04/01/10	Top Texas Contractors The 125 Texas firms in our 15th annual Top Contractor rankings collectively billed about $24 billion in the state in 2009, a decrease of about $1 billion reported from the 2008, when we listed an additional five...
04/01/10	Safety Net By Debra Wood Construction firms are discovering that monitoring and analyzing safety observations collected electronically can improve safety by identifying hazards and taking action to eliminate problem areas.
03/01/10	Pacific War Museum By Angelle Bergeron When Joe Cavanaugh talks about Pearl Harbor, Bataan, Midway and other focal points of World War II in the Pacific Theater, it takes a moment to realize he isn’t referring to the actual historic locations but...
03/01/10	Lorenzo de Zavala Archives and Library Building By Angelle Bergeron The recently completed $15.5-million renovation of the Lorenzo de Zavala Archives and Library Building in Austin means documents and artifacts that illustrate Texas’ rich history are now better protected and...
03/01/10	CM-at-Risk Gives Nimitz More Bang for its Buck Using construction management at risk on the $15.5-million renovation of the National Museum of the Pacific War allowed the Texas Historical Commission and the Admiral Nimitz Foundation to get more...
03/01/10	Historical Fort Sam Houston Made Modern By Angelle Bergeron About two dozen buildings at Fort Sam Houston, some dating back almost as early as the post’s 1876 origin, are being transformed into modern, energy-efficient offices, barracks and other facilities for...
03/01/10	North Texas, Oklahoma Report By Debra Wood North Texas and Oklahoma have not escaped the economic downturn, with designers and contractors finding fewer construction starts than a couple of years ago.
03/01/10	Higher Education Stays Afloat By Debra Wood Texas A&M University’s Department of Construction Science has teamed up with Skanska USA Building to create a unique learning opportunity for students.
03/01/10	Above and Beyond By Tudor Van Hampton Hanging more than 200 ft over a jobsite in downtown Kansas City, Mo., James Hague doesn’t seem to notice the tiny people and equipment below his feet.
01/01/10	2010: No Guarantees - Economists Predict Slow Growth Even as the Texas economy begins climbing out of the doldrums, construction activity in the state will likely remain slow, leading economists say.
01/01/10	2010 TxDOT Outlook The Texas Dept. of Transportation anticipates using money from a variety of sources to let more than $4 billion in projects in 2010, up significantly from last year.
01/01/10	National Outlook 2010 After three years of declines, the construction market may be eyeing a rebound in 2010 thanks to a much improved residential sector, but for designers and contractors in other building sectors, it could be too...
12/01/09	Best of 2009 Texas Construction presents its thirteenth annual Best Of awards issue, which honors projects completed in our region between Sept. 1, 2008, and Sept. 1, 2009.
12/01/09	NRG Cedar Bayou, Baytown: Judges’ Award - Best Industrial Project To say weather was an issue during the construction of the NRG Cedar Bayou combined cycle gas-fired power plant unit would be an understatement.
12/01/09	Dallas Center for Architecture, Dallas: Best Cultural Project The new Dallas Center for Architecture was the result of a design competition that provided a one-month period to fully explore and develop concept.
11/01/09	Healthy Hospitals With baby boomers now in their 60s and a round of hospitals built in the 1950s outdated, billions of dollars will be spent in the United States over the next decade.
11/01/09	Hess Tower and Energy Center I & II When it opens in summer 2010, the Hess Tower in Houston, a 29-story, 845,000-sq-ft office building, will have 10 wind turbines on the roof to capture wind energy and meet some of the building’s power needs.
11/01/09	Green Team Texas leaders from the design community, academia and government will present sessions at the U.S. Green Building Council’s Greenbuild International Conference & Expo in Phoenix this month.
11/01/09	Teaching Green Sustainable building improves performance by both students and teachers, which is a huge selling point for school boards and school districts.
11/01/09	LWPB’s Historic Office Aims for LEED-Silver LWPB Architecture of Oklahoma City wanted to go green when it opened a branch office in Norman, and it ended up going historic as well.
11/01/09	Building With Care: Texas’ Health Care Market Remains Vital Even though the recession has hurt the Texas health-care market, numerous jobs are moving forward.
10/01/09	Texas' 2009 Top Design Firms Although the number of new projects has declined due to tight financial markets and the recession, several Texas Top Design Firms finished 2008 in good shape and continue working on projects.
10/01/09	Going Up While the recession has hampered new high-rise starts, several continue rising skyward, and at least one, the $180-million, 850,000-sq-ft, 35-story, mixed-use Block 21/The W Hotel in Austin, broke ground...
10/01/09	Ranking of Texas' Top Design Firms In this year’s Top Design ranking, URS Corp. takes the No. 1 spot, with more than $342.3 million in Texas billings during 2008.
10/01/09	South Texas Report By Debra Wood While parts of the region continue to recover from Hurricane Ike, one year after the storm K-12 and university work continue to be strong building sectors in South Texas.
09/01/09	Soil, Steel Issues Slow Bridge Project By Debra Wood Even though the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has required more soil testing at the site of the future Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge in Dallas, construction continues on other portions of the structure, which is...
09/01/09	Intelligent Compaction Is on a Roll By Tudor Van Hampton Nationwide research is firming up the case for "intelligent" compaction, or IC, a construction method three decades in the making that could save billions of dollars a year in potholed roads, cracked bridges,...
09/01/09	Midcontinent Express Expands By Pam Radtke Russell Neither the recession nor the rain could stop work on a 507-mi natural gas pipeline from Oklahoma to Alabama that was scheduled at press time to start full service this month after a whirlwind 11-month...
09/01/09	Feeling the Recession - East Texas builders welcome work By Debra Wood While not as slow as other places in the country, Houston and East Texas contractors are seeing a decline in new private projects.

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