Trends ranging from resurgent residential markets to emerging energy markets could prove profitable to many Midwest builders and help the region's construction industry heal its wounds after a long downturn.

By its own admission, Kansas City, Mo.-based designer Burns & McDonnell can be a bit of a plodder when branching into new practice areas, a tendency it says sometimes requires patience from management.

In 45 seconds it came and went. Ballast from atop the roof rained down, shattering windows, sending glass shards flying.

For better and for worse, the Midwest is emerging as a tale of two regions: the one that is regaining momentum on the strength of a resurgent manufacturing sector and the other that is idling on the tracks of a derailed economy.

By late August, as the sun set on one of the most scorching summers in U.S. history, it became clear that Monroe, Ohio-based Baker Concrete Construction Co. just might achieve its goal of registering zero OSHA recordable incidents of heat-related injury or illness this season, despite punishing conditions on sites such as that of the new Meldahl Hydroelectric Plant, located east of Cincinnati.

Looks can be deceiving. On paper, the companies on the ENR Midwest Top Contractors list seemed to defy gravity in 2011.

It might sound like hyperbole, but not so long ago Neenah, Wis.-based Miron Construction Co. built the greenest school on earth.

Until recently, HDR inc. was perhaps the best-known design firm no one knew was operating in Chicago.

It was during a design charette in 2005 that project executives with Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects and KJWW Engineering Consultants, designers of the University of Illinois Business Instructional Building, first broached the subject of constructing the facility in accordance with LEED standards.

It was billed as a year of recovery, but 2011 proved anything but for the construction industry in the Midwest and elsewhere.