This Year's Top Starts ranking clearly illustrates two points: California took full advantage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) and other federal funds to launch many projects, and large health-care projects, which accounted for six of last year’s top 10 projects, continue to make a mark, thanks to the state’s upcoming deadline for seismic upgrades to hospitals and medical facilities. Additionally, while construction markets continue to be tough, this year’s top 25 starts total more than $8 billion in construction value, compared with $7.5 billion for 2009’s top 39.

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Super Lab UCSF’s new building will be the world’s largest neuroscience complex.

Transportation Leads the Way

Heading this year’s list are five major transportation projects, including four that used federal funds to get a jump start:

• While the Los Angeles International Airport Bradley West Terminal expansion, totaling $1.5 billion, received no federal funds, a side project in the LAX Master Plan construction program—the Los Angeles Fire Dept. aircraft rescue station—drew on ARRA aid for $10.8 million of its $13.5-million budget.

• The second-largest project, the $1.3-billion, 1.7-mile San Francisco Central Subway, which will extend the Third Street light rail line from Fourth and King streets to Chinatown, received $942 million in funding from the Federal Transit Administration’s New Starts program.

• Third on the list is the $1-billion Interstate 405 Sepulveda Pass widening project in Los Angeles, which received $200 million in ARRA funding.

• The fourth-ranked project, the ambitious $995-milion Transbay Transit Center in San Francisco, received $400 million in ARRA funds.

• The $391-million Caldecott Tunnel fourth bore project in Contra Costa County secured nearly $180 million in ARRA aid.

“The stimulus was a huge benefit to the state’s infrastructure,” says Andy Ball, president of Webcor Builders, San Mateo, which is constructing the Transbay Transit Center in a joint venture with Obayashi Corp. “The funds, especially [for] the transit center, were essential to keep construction going,” he says.

Ball adds that because of major projects that began last year and others breaking ground this year, 2011 is looking much more positive for Webcor. He says that with the market downturn, many construction and engineering companies had to become more efficient and “do more with less and embrace technology.” Because of the exceptionally low bidding that has been going on since 2007, efficiency and downsizing are the only options, he says. “But I think the desperation has evaporated and things should level out this year,” Ball adds.

Getting some of these huge, complex projects under way can take years of effort. Ball notes that last year’s second-largest project start, the San Francisco General Hospital replacement, took six years to break ground and Webcor waited two years after signing its contract to get on the site.

There also was a long wait for this year’s No. 1 Top Start, the LAX terminal expansion. Roger Johnson, deputy executive director for the Los Angeles World Airports’ LAX development program, says the LAX Master Plan was stalled before the 2005 election of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. Johnson says Villaraigosa worked with opponents and environmental groups that had filed lawsuits. In 2006 the parties reached a settlement, and construction finally began after more than 10 years of planning.

Since the Tom Bradley International Terminal opened in 1984, security enhancements and larger aircraft have put new demands on the facility. “The goal of Bradley West is to accommodate some of the new, huge double-deck jets, like the Airbus 380,” says Johnson.

In order to meet a challenging completion date of December 2012, Johnson and his construction management-at-risk team, including the Walsh/Austin Joint Venture and Fentress Architects, are juggling phasing and sequencing efforts around LAX’s busy schedule of 1,400 daily landings and takeoffs.

Health-care projects continue to be a major factor in the state’s construction industry, scoring five of the 25 Top Starts for 2009. The catalyst is a set of regulations stemming from California Senate Bill 1953, which was approved after the 1994 Northridge earthquake. The measure requires seismic upgrades or replacements of hospitals and other medical facilities. Hospital owners are scrambling to meet the first deadlines, which come into play in 2013.

Ray Zunino, vice president with Hunt Construction Group, Scottsdale, Ariz., which is rebuilding Sequoia Hospital in Redwood City (number 16 on this year’s list), says that because of the legislation, Hunt and other contractors are getting much more health-care work in California than in other states. Senate Bill 1953 “is definitely driving the health-care construction in California,” Zunino says. “There is zero work in residential, hospitality, office and any developer-driven work.”