By Mark Rea

For more than 20 years, Houston-based Suncoast Post-Tension LP has worked in a tiny portion of the construction industry and grown into one of the top specialty contracting businesses in Texas.

Specializing in providing and installing post-tension cable for unique concrete construction, Suncoast has jumped into the top 10 among Texas Construction's Top Specialty Contractors the last two years. The company ranked seventh this year with reported Texas revenue of $87.0 million after finishing ninth in last year's rankings.

The privately owned company was established in 1983 by individuals with significant experience in the application of unbonded post-tensioning in commercial and residential construction. Unlike most of the industry, the founders were aware of the numerous benefits of post-tensioning in modern day construction and reasoned that if they could make this technology and their collective expertise available to contractors in a way that would provide added value, Suncoast would be a success.

Today, that expertise is evident in high-rise commercial buildings, hotels, residential towers and parking structures from coast to coast. That same expertise is also now part of residential and industrial projects that utilize post-tensioned slab on ground construction - projects that provided the foundation for Suncoast's entry into the commercial market throughout the United States, and made the company a leading source of post-tension system components and related engineering and technical field services.

From its headquarters in Houston, the company has expanded in just two decades to employ more than 700 people in offices throughout Texas, Florida, Georgia, Virginia, Maryland, Colorado, Arizona and California.

Suncoast's engineering division employs the latest hardware, software and communications technology available in the industry to produce preliminary feasibility studies, cost estimating structural design, consulting construction scheduling and in-house prepared shop drawings. Computer-assisted design and drafting, or CADD, systems are used in-house by the technical staff to develop detailed solutions for post-tension construction applications.

The materials used in the company's post-tension systems are required to meet stringent industry specifications and are fabricated under a quality control program established by the Suncoast engineering division. System materials produced by the company include fabricated unbonded tendons, anchors, wedges, pocket formers and stressing equipment encapsulation systems for corrosive environments.

The quality control program is monitored by outside suppliers and at Suncoast's plant to ensure the fabricated materials received on the job site meet exact specifications.
The company operates five certified fabrication plants in Texas - Houston, Austin, San Antonio, Dallas and Fort Worth - as well as in Miami, Woodbridge, Va., Phoenix and Ontario, Calif.

The Post-Tensioning Institute provides independent verification that the manufacturing and handling procedures, as well as the material quality, used in fabricating the Suncoast post-tensioning system are capable of producing a system that meets specific standards established in the PTI Plant Certification Program.

The company lent its expertise to three of the state's most recent high-profile projects, including the $425 million Reliant Stadium in Houston, the $137 million Frost Bank Tower in Austin and the parking garage at the $1.07 billion Terminal D at DFW International Airport in Dallas.