After more than a year’s halt prompted by the economic slowdown, Valero Energy Corp., the country’s largest independent oil refiner, is reviving refinery expansions in Port Arthur, Texas, and St. Charles, La., that will cost nearly $3 billion combined. The San Antonio-based company announced last month restarts of hydrocracker construction projects at the two facilities that will help it remove sulfur and produce more diesel. Valero stopped both projects in mid-2009, citing weak demand and poor refinery margins, says Bill Day, a company spokesman. The estimated $1.5-billion Texas project is expected to generate up to 1,500 new construction jobs and
The Federal Highway Administration has given the Texas Dept. of Transportation a green light to proceed with construction of the West Rail project in Brownsville, an estimated $85-million effort to relocate a Union Pacific Railroad line out of the heart of the city and away from downtown Matamoros, Mexico. The project is a cooperative effort involving officials in both cities, the state agency, Cameron County and the Mexican government. On the U.S. side, improvements would relocate the existing railway from the U.S. 77-83 rail junction to a switching yard farther west, routing it south to the Rio Grande River just
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
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
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
Formerly of Plano, Richardson-based Hill & Wilkinson relocated its offices recently and is going green with the move as the finish-out achieved LEED-gold status. Doug Talley, left, and Paul Driscoll of Hill & Willkinson in the firm’s new Richardson location. div id="articleExtrasA" div id="articleExtrasB" div id="articleExtras" The firm signed a long-term lease to occupy approximately 27,000 sq ft in the 190 Tech Park building located at 2703 Telecom Parkway. More than 100 employees were involved in the move. The firm formed in 1968 is privately held by two principal shareholders with a succession plan for president Doug Talley and CEO
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