Central. Rooms dedicated to IT infrastructure are focus at Phoenix Airport. (Photo courtesy of Phoenix Aviation Department) When Phoenix City Councilwoman Peggy Bilsten’s mother uses Sky Harbor Airport, she now can go to a new paging assistance location and send a message to her daughter either by typing–in Braille–or using a phone. Within minutes, the message flashes on screens throughout the terminal, and a voice reads it over the public announcement system. Nothing quite like the Passenger Information and Paging System, installed just this spring, exists at any other U.S. airport–yet. "Coming up with custom products is something we do,"
It is said there are three forms of deception—white lies, damned lies and statistics. If there was a place where statistics are not telling the whole story, it is this year’s results of the ENR Top 100 Design-Build Firms. Taken without context, the survey shows a slide in use of design-build in 2004. But that might ring false to those who practice the approach regularly. The 2004 revenue total for The ENR Top 100 fell 2.8% from the previous year, to $47.22 billion. On the domestic side, this group had an even larger 6% falloff from the previous year, garnering
The market for construction management-for-fee and fee-based program management services has been fluctuating in the past few years. One problem is that fee-based construction management is not so much an alternate project delivery system as a bundle of management services provided to owners to help plan and execute a construction project or program. "Construction managers and program managers are misnamed," says Steve Routon, HNTB senior vice president. "They should be called collaboration coordinators." For ENR’s Top 100 Construction Management-for-Fee Firms and Top 40 Program Management Firms, 2004 was a big year. The two groups generated $6.76 billion in combined CM
Construction management has been growing steadily over the years as more owners downsize or decline to hire internal staff to manage their own construction projects. But beyond client unwillingness to increase overhead to meet demands of growing capital programs, these owners also have an aversion to assuming the risks such projects entail. As a result, construction management at-risk has been on the upswing over the past few years. This growth is evident in the revenue totals of ENR’s Top 100 CM-at-Risk Firms. In 2004, the Top 100 had combined revenue of $54.29 billion, up 6.6% over its $50.94 billion in
The 2005 Top CM Firms, Top Design-Builders and Top Program Managers are free to ENR subscribers but each can be purchased for $14.95. For Top CM Firms, click here For Top Design-Builders, click here For Top Program Managers and overview story, click here Want the entire Top 100 Design-Build / Construction Management/Program Management Firms (2005 edition) in an electronic format? Click here for more information. There are some sharp curves in the winding path that Imperial Construction Group has followed to reach its present, prosperous situation as one of New Jersey’s leading construction managers. Beginning life in 1986 as an
There was a time when an owner that wished to build a project could choose from a short list of project delivery methods. There was the traditional design-bid-build. Then construction management arose as an alternative. New firms appeared offering their services as owners’ agents to manage the project for a fee, while general contractors began to expand their services, moving into the front-end to manage the project on an at-risk basis. Firms then began to take on the whole project, from design through construction on a design-build basis. Each method had its advantages and drawbacks. But clients have become even
In the early 1990s, an Intel Corp. construction project in Ireland received a safety flag, a top local award for an outstanding jobsite safety record. But project leader Art Stout, now the chipmaker’s manager of corporate capital development, wouldn’t allow the flag to be flown, claiming the record "wasn’t good enough." Intel implemented and honed a tougher corporate-wide construction safety program that has made it an industry role model today. Recordable injuries and illnesses fell from a rate of 5.95 per 100 full-time workers in 1994 to 0.68 just five years later. But the global manufacturer, which spends between $3
Behind the Cutter. Crews operate TBMS in tough ground with high water pressure. (Photo by John J. Kosowatz for ENR) Stymied once by tremendous groundwater pressures and difficult geology, tunnelers in southern California are trying again to push two critical links to completion in a $1.2-billion project that will provide water for fast-growing and increasingly thirsty cities and towns spreading east from Los Angeles. Two years into their second attempt, Metropolitan Water District of Southern California officials are keeping their fingers crossed as work crews start–and stop–the Arrowhead tunnels penetrating the San Bernardino Mountains. The tunnels mark the beginning of
Marching Orders. Williams formed a team to work "quicker, better, more responsively." (Photo by Janice L. Tuchman for ENR) How do you open 15 embassies and consulates in four years, start construction on 39 more and have 13 ready to bid? Two words: "Discipline and accountability," says Charles E. Williams, director and COO of the Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations at the U.S. State Dept. "Accountability is a word Williams uses every day," says P.K. Bagchi, OBO’s project director for the new U.S. Embassy complex under construction in Beijing. "He doesn’t micromanage, and his door is open so you can
Click here to view contractor rankings The complete 2005 Top 400 Contractors list with revenue and market data is free to ENR subscribers but can also be purchased for only $14.95. (This version does not contain market segment breakout charts that appear in the May 16, 2005 magazine) Want the complete ENR Top 400 Contractors (2005 Electronic Edition) which also includes breakout charts and special supplements? Click here for more information. For large general contractors, 2004 was a solid year for business. After three years of sluggish markets and uncertainty, activity picked up in most market sectors and in most
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