This year’s regional Best Projects competition drew more than 100 entries from contractors, design firms and project stakeholders across Texas and Louisiana.
The judges selected the winning ENR Texas & Louisiana entries based on the following criteria: overcoming challenges and teamwork; safety; innovation and contribution to the industry and community; construction quality and craftsmanship; and design function and aesthetics.
Balfour Beatty, working as managing partner, led the BARC joint venture team with Azteca, H.J. Russell and CARCON in the $140-million, 400,000-sq-ft DFW International Airport Terminal A Phase II renovation and improvement project.
The $1.2-billion Houston METRO Light Rail Expansion Design-Build Project included design, construction, testing and commissioning of three new rail lines totaling 15 miles.
The George and Joyce Wein Jazz & Heritage Center project consisted of the full historical restoration and adaptive reuse of what were two separate townhouses built in the 1870s.
Zachry Group was selected to provide full-scale engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) services for a new production plant at BASF’s Verbund site in Freeport, Texas.
EnWave USA’s new Biomedical District Steam Plant accomplishes a major goal of disaster preparedness planning in New Orleans in the wake of the devastation left by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
The impetus behind the Highland Park Town Hall and Dept. of Public Safety renovation was the need to bring up to date the dispatch operation by upgrading the infrastructure, technology and equipment.
The city of Georgetown’s new 70,000-sq-ft Public Safety Training Facility is composed of multiple two-story buildings, each bullet resistant and able to withstand an F4 tornado.
After Robins & Morton led the construction of the Sierra Providence East Medical Center in El Paso, which opened in 2008, Tenet Healthcare Corp. invited the contractor to provide preconstruction and general contracting services for the facility’s new $43.8-million South Tower and Emergency Department Expansion project.
The $15-million, 60,000-sq-ft Methodist Orthopedic Specialist of Texas Building in Sugar Land improves the technology and patient capacity for Houston Methodist Sugar Land Hospital.
The Helmerich Research Center houses 35,000 books, 40,000 manuscripts, 300 maps and 100,000 other documents, plus an original copy of the Declaration of Independence.
Rees-Jones Hall is a three-story, $20-million, 62,000-sq-ft instructional building dedicated to interdisciplinary studies on Texas Christian University’s East Campus.
Bluebonnet Contractors led design and construction on the $2.1-billion North Tarrant Express (NTE), the reconstruction of a 13-mile, east-west highway corridor in Tarrant County.
Archer Western demolished an existing single steel truss bridge and replaced it with twin, cast-in-place segmental bridges that measured 1,916 linear ft over Lake Marble Falls in Texas.
The new career center for Hurst-Euless-Bedford Independent School District is designed to serve the district’s secondary student body in career preparation, advancement and post-secondary opportunities.
Bell Helicopter selected BE&K Building Group to provide construction services for its newest world-class aerospace assembly facility, built on a 14.5-acre site at Lafayette Regional Airport.
After conducting an extensive selection process, the General Services Administration chose the design-build team of Gilbane/Gensler to provide repairs and alterations to the G.T. “Mickey” Leland Federal Building in Houston.
Riata Vista is a multiphase, master-planned campus for a global high-tech company. The campus spreads across 20 acres, and Phase 1 entailed building two Class A office buildings totaling 283,000 sq ft, plus a six-story parking garage for 1,700 vehicles.
The Dr. Charles Drew Elementary School is a 65,000-sq-ft school in New Orleans that suffered water damage during hurricanes Katrina and Rita and was on the FEMA list of schools to be rebuilt or restored.
The Lemoine Co. led work on the expansion and renovation at General Electric’s existing facility in Broussard, La., where the owner was looking to consolidate both the manufacture and repair of its blowout preventers.
Fair Plaza Garage includes 384 parking spaces, a new 5-ft by 12-ft precast storm culvert beneath it, a new sanitary line and a generator for emergency power.
New Orleans’ Audubon Aquarium chose to replace its massive 65,000-sq-ft traditional roof with a more sustainable system after Hurricane Katrina damaged the roof in 2005.
San Antonio Independent School District’s Alamo Stadium, built in 1939 by the Works Progress Administration, is a nationally registered historic landmark.
In 2010, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Galveston District launched a $52-million design-build project to repair nine work areas at six dilapidated jetties and dikes along the 750-mile Texas coastline.
After decades of political, funding and environmental challenges, Austin’s Water Treatment Plant No. 4 was completed, commissioned and started up in November 2014.
Constant challenges for the project team included keeping the existing plant operating at peak performance during heavy construction, keeping plant staff safe, outfall permitting, high water levels of the Mississippi River and maintaining safe site access for the plant staff.
RIDA Development Corp., Houston First Corp. and Balfour Beatty/ Welbro, a joint venture, are building a new Houston convention center hotel—the Marriott Marquis Houston.