... more than 300 staff positions in Middle East operations right now,” he says. “The competition for talent is tremendous.”

The opportunities in the Middle East, particularly the United Arab Emirates and its neighbors, remain plentiful and diverse, with demand being seen in most sectors. Global firms have found particular success in hospitality work, including the multi-billion dollar Dubailand project. The project, which will have nearly 3 billion sq ft of space in Dubai, features dozens of projects, including a dinosaur theme park, several large stadiums, museums and the Mall of Arabia, which is set to become one of the largest shopping centers in the world.

DMJM H&N is currently working on the Ras Al Hadd Re sort in Oman. The company is serving as project manager of the property under a $200-million contract. The resort community will include a mix of hotels, housing, restaurants, retail and community services. The company began work in spring 2006, and completion is scheduled for late 2009.

Emerging demand for higher education facilities is also driving work in the region. In Saudi Arabia, HOK is designing the new King Abdullah University of Science and Technology. The 6.5-million-sq-ft core campus is located on more than 36 million sq meters on the Red Sea at Thuwal. A community center with 2,800 residential units and a commercial center is being built adjacent to the university. The campus is expected to open in September 2009. HOK is incorporating several sustainable strategies into the design, including solar chimneys, onsite photovoltaics and heat recovery wheels.

Evolving Partnerships

Public-private partnerships continue to see expanding acceptance in institutional building worldwide, particularly in Europe. PB is currently working on a $400-million contract to deliver 16 new and refurbished schools in Newcastle, U.K., as part of the government’s Building Schools for the Future program. PB is part of a consortium that will design, build, manage, finance and maintain the schools over a 25-year period.

In October, French firm Bouygues Construction signed a $340-million contract to build a new hospital in Bourgoin-Jallieu, France, as part of a public-private partnership. The deal was the 80th hospital contract landed by the company since January 2005.

New York-based Bovis Lend Lease is part of a consortium that signed a contract in November with the Victorian Government for the $882-million redevelopment of the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne, Australia. The project, which is the largest hospital redevelopment in Australia, started construction in December and is expected to open in 2011.

Bovis is also finding mega projects in Australia’s commercial sector. The company began site work in February on a $377-million 87,000-sq-meter office building at Victoria Harbour. When completed in 2009, it will be the country’s largest office building, providing space for 5,500 staffers of financial firm ANZ. The building is designed to have a minimum five-star Green Star rating, making it one of the few commercial buildings in the country to achieve such a standard.

Skanska continues to bank heavily on its commercial work in Europe. The company inked numerous deals in 2007 for major office projects in London. The company signed a $300-million contract in August to build the Walbrook office and retail development in central London. The project, which includes 60,600 sq meters of retail and office space, will be one of the largest commercial projects in the city when completed in 2009.

Skanska is also expanding its presence in Eastern Europe, signing three commercial projects during 2007 in Poland and the Czech Republic with a combined value of nearly $100 million. Included among those projects is the company’s first proj ect in Wroclaw, Poland’s fourth largest city.

Closer to home, the Swedish company is building and developing a new $132 million 30,000-sq-meter office building at Lindhagensterrassen in Stockholm. The building, which will be leased by Skandia, is expected to complete in late 2009.

Although strong economies worldwide have kept construction projects moving, firms are still cautiously eyeing the international credit markets. Many observers say the credit crunch experienced in the U.S. so far has not had an impact beyond North America, but that does not mean it could not happen in the future.

“The credit crunch isn’t as bad as it’s made up to be outside the U.S.,” HOK’s MacLeamy says. “There have been some stresses on European banks. That’s had zero impact so far, but there’s still a lot of talk about it. If we’re not careful, it could be a self-fulfilling prophesy, with developers pulling back on their plans.”