Efficiency is not a word to describe traditional construction systems, says Jim Jacobi, senior principal and chief information officer with Houston-based Walter P Moore. Photo: Tonie Auer Jim Jacobi, senior principal & CIO, Walter P Moore, delivers the keynote presentation at BIM Texas 2010 in Dallas on September 23. Delivering the keynote presentation at the two-day BIM Texas 2010 conference in Irving on Thursday, Jacobi touted the use of Building Information Modeling (BIM) in yielding significant results toward that effort. The event was jointly presented by TEXO, a construction association in Dallas and Texas A&M University. Jacobi says Walter P
With the 6,350th glass pane hoisted into place on Sept. 15, the only visible sign of anything having been awry at Atlanta’s 723-ft-tall Westin Peachtree Plaza Hotel—the tallest hotel in the Western Hemisphere—is the exterior hoist, set to come down by mid-November. But for more than two years, there were pockmarks on the glass-clad facade, which was hit by flying debris during a freak tornado in March 2008. The 35-year-old hotel stayed open, minus damaged rooms, during the year-long, $22-million project. For several reasons, owner Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc., White Plains, N.Y., elected to install all new tinted
A $503-million replacement hospital project at Fort Hood was awarded to Balfour-Beatty/McCarthy, Dallas, on September 10 by the Fort Worth District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Image: USACE, Fort Worth. An aerial rendering shows a northwest view of the new Fort Hood replacement hospital designed by HKS, Dallas, and Wingler & Sharp, Wichita Falls. The contract was a two-step full and open design-build procurement process, says Denisha Braxton, spokeswoman for USACE, Fort Worth. The two other short-listed teams were Hensel Phelps (Austin) & Robins Morton (Birmingham, Ala.) and Turner-Zachry Fort Hood Healthcare of San Antonio. The Corps selected
Bulldozers may soon be pushing dirt in the Everglades following the issuance Sept. 3 of new marching orders from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to the State of Florida to improve the quality of water entering the Everglades Protection Area. The agency was acting in response to pressure from an April U.S. District Court decision ordering EPA and the state to begin enforcing the water quality standards mandated by Florida�s 1994 Everglades Forever Act and the Federal Clean Water Act. To comply with the court order, EPA has notified Florida that clean water standards for phosphorus are not being achieved
Plainly, 2009 was not a good year for Southeast contractors and designers. And judging from the data collected from Southeast Construction’s annual Top Specialty Contractors survey, for the ranking published here, specialty firms took a severe hit last year. Related Links: Specialty Contracting Slowdown KHS&S Gets Lean Top Specialty Contractor Rankings The number of responses to this most recent annual survey was down considerably. In itself, that’s a telling indicator. While each of the previous two Top Specialty Contractor rankings had reached a depth of 200, this latest “Top” survey generated only enough responses for a ranking of 150. Last
FKP Architects’ senior associate and project designer, Mezio S. Zangirolami, AIA, LEED AP, was recently named among the Houston Business Journal’s 2010 “40 Under 40” honorees. The annual awards program identifies 40 leaders on the rise who excel in their industries, are respected business leaders and show leadership in their communities. Zangirolami graduated from the University of Houston with a bachelor’s degree in architecture. TEXO, the combined chapter of the North/East Texas Chapter of the Associated General Contractors and the Associated Builders and Contractors North Texas, named Hank Mouser of Balfour Beatty Construction, its 2010 Safety Professional of the Year.
St. Louis-based Kwame Building Group, with offices in Dallas and Oklahoma City, was recently contracted to provide construction management services to the Oklahoma Dept. of Transportation. The first projects under the contract are expected to total $59 million. div id="articleExtrasA" div id="articleExtrasB" div id="articleExtras" Kwame will provide construction management for road, bridge, drainage and other repair projects throughout Oklahoma.
W.S. Bellows Construction Corp. and Texas Children’s Hospital topped out the $575-million maternity center, which is aiming for completion later this year. Texas Children’s Hospital’s new 796,000-sq ft maternity center will include a 15-floor maternity hospital, clinic and additional space built over a 532,000-sq-ft sub-grade, four-level parking garage. div id="articleExtrasA" div id="articleExtrasB" div id="articleExtras" The ultimate site will encompass 1.9-million sq ft with two 28-story towers serving obstetric and pediatric patients. The center was designed by Dallas-based FKP Architects and Houston-based Inventure Design.
Construction started this summer at the 20MW $30 million Pringle Wind Farm in the Texas Panhandle with completion slated for the third quarter. With foundations being completed earlier this summer, the $30 million Pringle Wind Farm, in the Texas Panhandle, has begun crane operations at the first turbine and will sequentially move through turbine No. 10. div id="articleExtrasA" div id="articleExtrasB" div id="articleExtras" DeWind Co. Project Manager Hugo Ramirez tells Texas Construction that 10 80-meter towers will be strategically spread out over approximately three miles of agricultural and oil field wells. The project will have local distribution lines and some direct
State transportation officials recently approved 11 projects estimated at $280 million that will be funded by TxDOT’s pass-through finance program. div id="articleExtrasA" div id="articleExtrasB" div id="articleExtras" The Texas Transportation Commission approved the list of projects. Pass-through financing allows local municipalities or private entities to pay for costs to build a transportation project and get reimbursed from the state as the project becomes operational. It lets local officials accelerate projects. The commission added a provision that limits the liability of TxDOT and partnering public entities in the event of project cost overruns or underruns into all pass-through finance agreements. If any
RSS
