Despite a recent stumbling block, work is progressing on the $447-million design-build contract to build a third raw water intake tunnel at Lake Mead—the Las Vegas Valley’s water lifeline. The Southern Nevada Water Authority awarded the contract in March 2008 to Vegas Tunnel Constructors LLC, a joint-venture of S.A. Healy Co., Lombard, Ill. and Impreglio S.p.A., Sesto San Giovanni, Italy. The additional intake is needed because lake levels have dipped 110 ft since 2000. Lake Mead now operates at 1,087 ft, or about half of its capacity. One or both of the existing water inlets will be forced to shut
Our annual survey of subcontractors in the Southwest shows revenue totals plummeting in 2009. Last year, we ranked 160 companies totaling $6.13 billion based on their 2008 revenue. This year, the responses fell to 113 firms with revenue totaling just $3.58 billion in 2009. Photo Courtesy Carollo Engineers Crews pour concrete for a clarifier floor during construction on the third phase of the $60-million Casa Grande Water Reclamation Facility. Related Links: Top 113 Specialty Contractors State/Worldwide Market Sectors Safest Subcontractors Even with the drop in participation, the largest firms remain fairly consistent year to year. All but five of last
Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) says the state will appeal a July 28 preliminary injunction by a U.S. district judge that prevents portions of the state�s controversial immigration law from going into effect. �I will battle all the way to the Supreme Court, if necessary, for the right to protect the citizens of Arizona,� Brewer said. Brewer said the state would file an expedited appeal with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The law, which allows police to detain individuals under �reasonable suspicion� of being an illegal alien, was signed April 23 was supposed to have gone
An inflatable dam in downtown Tempe, Ariz., burst on July 20, emptying most of the contents of the 1-billion-gal Tempe Town Lake. No one was injured and no property was damaged in the resulting flood, which traveled down the normally dry Salt River through Phoenix. Peak flows were measured at 15,000 cu ft per second, equivalent to an average release during the area�s winter rainy season. Photo: Tony Blei Photography Eight rubber-coated fabric bladders retained 1 billion gal of water in Tempe. The two-mile lake was formed in 1999 using eight flexible, rubber-coated fabric tubes manufactured by Tokyo-based Bridgestone Industrial
In 2011, residents of Daybreak, a 4,200-acre master-planned community in South Jordan, Utah, will drive, bike or walk across the $2-million Brookside Bridge, which is made almost completely out of recycled materials. By then, project officials hope an environmental rating system for infrastructure will exist to quantify the bridge�s eco-friendliness. Photo Courtesy Of Kennecott Land Precast arches made out of recycled concrete were built on site, not shipped. Photo Courtesy Of Kennecott Land Builders of a Utah community bridge want a green rating. This June, contractor Ralph L. Wads-worth Construction, Salt Lake City, took two days, 500 worker-hours and twin
The 2010 session of the Colorado legislature passed a law requiring that automobile insurance policies be written in plain language not exceeding 10th-grade reading levels. Rather than doing the same for construction professionals� insurance policies, the legislature, in the very same session, passed laws relating to those complex policies on how they should be interpreted and applied by the courts. The term �construction professionals� means architects, contractors, subcontractors, developers, builders, builder-vendors, engineers and inspectors performing or furnishing the design, supervision, inspection, construction or observation of construction of real property improvements like houses, buildings, etc. Those industry members are commonly insured
What happens to subcontractors when owners can’t pay their general contractors? If their subcontracts have “pay-if-paid” provisions, the subcontractors may be out of luck. Those provisions mean that if the general does not get paid, it does not have to pay its subcontractors. While there are a number of courts in other states that have declared pay-if-paid clauses to be unenforceable, that is not presently the rule in Colorado. The last time the Colorado Supreme Court addressed the question, it suggested that pay-if-paid provisions would be enforceable in Colorado if (1) they clearly state that payment to the general contractor
Merger and acquisition transactions can be a viable alternative for accomplishing a number of strategic objectives in the context of building and realizing value for emerging growth and middle-market companies (those from startup to several hundred million dollars in revenue). Let’s take a high-level view of the buy-side and sell-side processes, and a framework for thinking about and planning each. Exits In many instances, the distinction between selling a company and raising capital is measured by the amount of equity sold and the contractual rights obtained by the buyer. Financing growth raises the issue of long-term shareholder objectives, which many
Construction crews hit water June 30 while tunneling 600-ft below Southern Nevada's drought-racked Lake Mead to create a third straw. The incident required a hasty evacuation, and could delay project progress by months. Water breached a 600-ft underground cavern during construction of Lake Mead's third straw, damaging equipment and potentially delaying construction. A 200-ft-long by 37-ft-high vault breach caused four days of gradual water seepage that eventually made it no longer accessible. Workers were building a 28-ft-dia, 100-ft-long horseshoe-shaped starter tunnel before using a $25 million Herrenknecht 1,500-ton tunnel boring machine when the incident occurred. Vegas Tunnel Constructors LLC �
As the state of the economy remains stagnant and with predictions of even more hard times ahead, the construction industry continues to take a hit. Revenues are down and competition for work is stiffer than ever, which means many contractors are looking at ways to minimize operating costs—including the option of reducing their workforce. Short-term gain versus long-term value We’ve been through tough times before, and we know things will eventually turn around. While Colorado lost more than 31,000 construction jobs last year (almost a quarter of the state’s construction employment), as a small business owner, I know I can’t
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