Technology and modeling solutions help bring striking design elements to life at the Nancy and Rich Kinder Building, which was named the Texas & Louisiana Project of the Year.

ENR Texas & Louisiana’s annual Best Projects competition honors achievements in construction across the five-state region, with special honors in safety and sustainability complementing the contest’s 18 main categories.

Photographs chosen by our editors from submissions to ENR.com/southwest/photos

Updates about construction professionals in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma and Texas.

Dodge offers data on projected 2021 construction starts in the Little Rock area.

Dodge offers data on projected 2021 construction starts in the Lake Charles area.

Updates on projects and companies in the Texas/Louisiana region.

Reports from key industry events across the Southwest region.

This $20.8-million upgrade to an aging water treatment plant included a new secondary treatment process and a mechanical dewatering system.

To help protect the “Central Park of Houston” from future flooding while maintaining its character, a seven-phase project identified 16 repair sites along two miles of the bayou.

To help diversify water sources, provide water security and meet the needs of the rapidly growing south central Texas community, the Vista Ridge Regional Water Supply Project utilizes a public-private partnership to supply 20% of San Antonio’s needed water.

Austin’s newest entertainment and sports venue is home to the city’s Major League Soccer team. On 26 acres, the LEED Silver 410,000-sq-ft stadium has permanent seating for 20,000 as well as club seats, lounges and luxury suites. 

This $181-million, 500,000-sq-ft convention center is the largest public building project in Oklahoma City’s history and the centerpiece of the MAPS 3 capital improvements program. 

Phase 1 of this $39.6-million project includes a natatorium, aquatics park and multipurpose facility, providing a 26-acre recreational/cultural hub for a previously underserved community. 

Honoring the city’s native son rock-and-roller, this $127.6-million performing arts campus is West Texas’ largest dedicated performance venue.

Numerous electrical installations were required on this $13.3-million, 340,000-sq-ft four-building technical college, including distribution, interior and exterior lighting, lighting controls and an emergency backup generator.

This $394,498 project connects two hiking trails in the park with a pier over the marsh so that visitors can see and interact with the many species living there.

Located on eight acres, this colorful playground offers areas for climbing, swinging and spinning as well as spaces for more tranquil endeavors. 

The 40,435-sq-ft Innovation Center, which sits 30 ft from an existing academic building, primarily serves the Dallas area’s low-income youth.

Delivered in March 2021, the 14-story Marriott Uptown contains 255 guest rooms and 22,000 sq ft of meeting and ballroom space.

HALL Arts is a 467,455-sq-ft project featuring a 28-story residential tower and 10-story boutique hotel. The project is pursuing LEED Gold and is the first residential development in the state to register for the WELL Building Standard.

This destination resort on 152 acres comprises 1.5 million sq ft of space, including a waterpark that totals 223,000 sq ft, an 11-story hotel, a family-entertainment center and—under separate contract—a 200,000-sq-ft convention center with a 41,000-sq-ft ballroom.

The National was built in 1965 as the First National Bank Tower, then the tallest building west of the Mississippi River. After an extended vacancy, the mixed-use project added 324 high-end apartments and 218 luxury suites as part of the Thompson Hotel. 

Completed in April 2021, The Ion redeveloped 190,000 sq ft of the 1939 Sears, Roebuck and Co. Building into retail, office, event and classroom space. 

This landmark was built in 1936 for the centennial of the Republic of Texas. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places and as a State Antiquities Landmark, the hall is one of three defining examples of Texas architecture, along with the Alamo and the Capitol.

The new corporate headquarters for the country’s largest municipally owned electric and gas utility encompasses two former AT&T buildings built in 1979 that underwent an energy-efficient renovation.

This first phase of the Village Towers mixed-use development included a six-story, Class-A office building with 120,000 sq ft of rentable space and a 420,000-sq-ft seven-story open parking garage with 20,000 sq ft for future development. 

Located on 12.8 acres in Webb Community Park, the $22.3-million Beacon Recreation Center features a LED-lighted two-story atrium, a gymnasium, a fitness stair, a cardio and weights area, and an aerobics and yoga studio.

Crews placed the slab and tilt wall panels for this 554,000-sq-ft distribution warehouse in late 2019 and early 2020 at a 1,500-acre industrial park crossing the  Mississippi and Tennessee state lines.

Completed in June 2020, this 816,920-sq-ft spec industrial development on Houston’s northwest side consists of four e-commerce-primed industrial facilities in a 64-acre corporate park.

The $6.7-million renovation of Mayor Vera Calvin Plaza revitalized Old Town Burleson’s public plaza with an outdoor concert stage, covered seating and streetscape improvements.

As a nonprofit organization, Girl Scouts Western Oklahoma needed to make every penny count in constructing its $10-million urban camp and STEM center, Camp Trivera.

Combining three older school buildings into a single, modern learning space was the goal of the $19.6-million Norman-Sims Elementary project in Austin. 

Squeezed into a narrow tract of land 1,000 ft from the Mississippi River, the team building the $39-million New Brusly High School faced four hurricanes, 10 months of historically high river levels and a tornado that destroyed their structural steel fabricator’s shop.

Building Indeed’s Austin office involved renovating a five-story, 183,911-sq-ft space into a collaborative work area with a café, game room, gym, library and break rooms. 

As a three-story market and restaurant with 13 venues for culinary shopping and gourmet dining, the $19.5-million Eataly Dallas location was designed with high-end finishes from around the world to create the feel of an Italian marketplace.

The team replacing the FM 457  Swing Bridge over the Gulf Intercoastal Waterway faced hurdles ranging from active vessel traffic to erratic weather to limited space for heavy lifts. Daily troubleshooting helped push the $41.2-million, 27-month project forward. 

The team replacing the FM 457  Swing Bridge over the Gulf Intercoastal Waterway faced hurdles ranging from active vessel traffic to erratic weather to limited space for heavy lifts. Daily troubleshooting helped push the $41.2-million, 27-month project forward. 

The $31-million Hemphill-Lamar Connector in Fort Worth involved building a four-lane, 400-ft-long tunnel under the city’s primary east-west freeway and relocating four active rail lines near one of the country’s busiest rail intersections.

The $16.8-million restoration of historic Weeks Hall at Texas Tech University required the project team to transform a three-story residence hall into a fresh new space on campus where students and faculty could collaborate, study and work. 

A collaborative approach that included creating a centralized hub where onsite workers could access the most up-to-date project information helped ensure efficiency among trades on the $9.7-million Delgado Community College Advanced Technology Center.

Meticulous coordination between multiple contractors was central to completing the $79.6-million University of Texas at Dallas Sciences Building.

With Thibodaux Regional Medical Center anticipating an influx of COVID-19 patients, construction teams worked two shifts daily, seven days a week to complete a 22,400-sq-ft, $10.9-million medical surgical unit in just 76 days. 

When an accelerated schedule ran into unexpected setbacks, the project team on the Methodist Midlothian Medical Center went to great lengths to make sure construction kept pace with the owner’s expectations.

A construction manager at-risk delivery method allowed contractor Brasfield & Gorrie to get involved early in the design of the Kathy and Joe Sanderson Tower at Children’s of Mississippi, a seven-story, 340,000-sq-ft expansion of the existing hospital. 

Agility was essential to constructing the University of Oklahoma Medical Center’s new $280.8-million, 144-bed patient tower. 

This $6.7-million, 18,000-sq-ft library required the project team to make extensive modifications to achieve a curved design—all while working with materials that were not intended to bend along a curve. 

After construction of the $124-million First Americans Museum was put on hold because of a funding reallocation, the project team developed a strategy for constructing the museum in phases to see the project to completion.

This energy-efficient project includes an eight-story office building, a six-story mixed-office and retail development and a four-story parking garage in the Pearl District in San Antonio.

Completed in October 2020, Cuisine Solutions’ sous vide processing facility has the capacity to continuously cook up to 500,000 lb of beef, poultry and egg products daily. 

The project team on this $138-million multi-building high school achieved an exemplary safety record with no lost-time incidents and delivered the project under budget two months ahead of schedule in May 2020 despite materials and workforce issues resulting from COVID-19. 

The COVID-19 pandemic escalated as contractors were midway through constructing the U.S. Dept. of Veterans Affairs Lubbock Outpatient Clinic.

The $39-million Diamond Green Diesel No. 2 Plant Expansion was designed to more than double the capacity of renewable diesel at DGD’s Norco, La., refinery.

The $1.4-billion expansion of the Phillips 66 natural gas liquids complex in Sweeny, Texas, transformed the facility into one of the nation’s largest NGL processing hubs and quadrupled the site’s capacity. 

Regarded as the most important building for Rice University for the next 100 years, the $77-million Brockman Hall for Opera required exceptional acoustical integrity and a striking European design.

With the Beth Yeshurun Sophia and Jack Bender Memorial Chapel funded by a single donation, the project team worked to balance costs with thoughtful design elements that would honor Jewish ceremonial traditions and the Bender family’s legacy.

In constructing its new integrated operations center (IOC), Dallas Fort Worth International Airport needed a facility that would provide 360-degree oversight of all its airport operations.