West Texas Report

Military and public work help region ‘weather the storm’

Private development has slowed, but public projects continue in West Texas.

By Debra Wood

Public projects are keeping many contractors afloat in West Texas and the Panhandle during the economic recession.

“We’re staying busy with college, school and industrial work,” says Jerry Rohane, president of Western Builders of Amarillo. Texas Tech University System awarded Western Builders a contract to build the $8-million School of Pharmacy expansion at the Amarillo Health Sciences College campus. Although the school expected it to break ground late last year, Rohane indicates value engineering is still under way.

“We’re doing pretty well, weathering the storm,” adds Tonya Felder, executive director of the Panhandle of Texas Chapter of the Associated General Contractors in Amarillo. “We’ve had a little bit of slowdown, but not as much as is happening nationally.”

The region experienced significant industrial growth last year, but Felder says there will be little industrial expansion this year. Instead, he anticipates more medical facilities, education work and municipal projects.

In El Paso, construction activity remains strong, says Carl Daniel, principal of Carl Daniel Architects of El Paso. Projects there include $4.6 billion in work at Fort Bliss, a new medical school at Texas Tech University, a major expansion to a nearby public hospital and a city-initiated downtown redevelopment project.

“El Paso has been insulated from the downturn, so far,” says Daniel, crediting the base projects with spurring much of the activity. “Everyone is scrambling to build facilities to take care of the soldiers and their families.”

Hensel Phelps Construction is building tactical equipment maintenance facilities at Fort Bliss. Photo courtesy of Hensel Phelps

Fort Bliss The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Fort Worth District, heads up Fort Bliss the work at Fort Bliss. The first projects were let in 2006, and facilities for one brigade are finished, with 3,700 soldiers living and working onsite.

“We will deliver a building a week for a five- to six-year period, 350 buildings total,” says Steve Wright, the corps program manager for the Fort Bliss expansion. “That’s $20 million a week in construction activity. It keeps a bunch of people working. Our contractors are stepping up and are production oriented.”

Hensel Phelps Construction Co. of Austin has several design-build projects under way at Fort Bliss. A three-phase, Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity, $550-million project includes several housing facilities, tactical equipment maintenance facilities and associated company operations facilities.

“We’re building places to live, to work on vehicles and to store equipment,” says Glen Miller, operations manager, West Texas region, for Hensel Phelps. “The Army is building a new city for 50,000 people.”

The Hensel Phelps team began the project in 2006 with The Benham Co. of Tulsa, Okla., providing design services. All of the work will wrap up by fall 2010. The team employed a modular construction method for the barracks and the administrative portion of the operations center. The maintenance facility uses a pre-engineered method of construction.

A rendering of The College of Health Sciences and School of Nursing at the University of Texas El Paso, designed by PageSoutherlandPage and Carl Daniel Architects, which will feature a simulation and other laboratories, classrooms and places for small-group discussions. Photo courtesy of PageSoutherlandPage.

“The modular and engineered method is used to accommodate the need for the Army to get it done as quickly as possible,” Miller says.

Caddell Construction Co. of Montgomery, Ala., which also received Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity, multiproject contracts, continues its work at Fort Bliss. The company has completed two $20-million, design-build brigade and battalion combat team complexes. It has another $24-million design-build brigade and battalion combat team complex under construction, along with a design-build fires brigade headquarters building, valued at $18.7 million, and a combat aviation brigade barracks, valued at $61.2 million.

Hensel Phelps also has received a $110-million, design-build contract for combat aviation brigade hangars at Fort Bliss. The facilities will house helicopters for the combat unit support teams. Jacobs of Fort Worth provided the design work.

C.F. Jordan Construction of El Paso is performing concrete, paving and infrastructure work as a subcontractor to Hensel Phelps and other contractors at Fort Bliss. The company has poured slabs, footings and thin-shell concrete tilt-wall panels, 2-in.-thick panels with imbedded metal studs, for a company operations facility as part of a $6-million-plus contract with Hensel Phelps. C.F. Jordan has three more projects pending at the base that may employ thin-set panels, says John Goodrich, executive vice president of C.F. Jordan’s Civil & Concrete Division.

C.F. Jordan is restoring the century-old Mills Building in downtown El Paso, where the city is supporting redevelopment efforts on the public side. Photo courtesy C.F. Jordan .

“Thin shell vs. regular tilt panels, the cost is the same, but the speed of construction and erection is about 30% faster, and by tilting the panel with the metal stud already imbedded you don’t have to have a frame-out crew come in behind,” Goodrich says. “You are ready for the electrician or the mechanical guys to run their stuff through the metal studs, insulate it, drywall and paint.”

As the prime contractor, C.F. Jordan also has started construction on a $48-million Texas Army National Guard tilt-up concrete office and metal-panel vehicle maintenance building at Fort Bliss. Completion is scheduled for April.

For Balfour Beatty Construction of Atlanta, C.F. Jordan recently completed about $37 million in sitework for military housing. C.F. Jordan also holds a $17-million contract to place heavy concrete paving at a tank and heavy equipment parking lot for Mapco of San Antonio.

C.F. Jordan recently completed the Foster and Stevens Basketball Complex at the University of Texas El Paso. Photo courtesy C.F. Jordan

“It’s fortunate for El Paso that we do have that work, because for the private market, we are skinny here with not many jobs,” Goodrich says. “The problem we are confronting in El Paso is a major influx of out-of-state subcontractors.”

Wright says the Army Corps of Engineers recently let $850 million in new projects associated with the addition of two additional brigades locating at Fort Bliss. Design-bid contractors for the buildings include M.A. Mortenson of Minneapolis; The Walsh Group’s Archer Western Contractors of Atlanta; Sundt of Tempe, Ariz.; and Au Authum Ki of Chandler, Ariz. J.D. Abrams of Austin received the infrastructure contract.

Mortenson received a $139-million contract for 12 company operations facilities, totaling 718,000 sq ft. Black & Veatch of Overland Park, Kan., will provide design services. The team will deliver the first buildings in June 2010 and the final ones in March 2011.

Archer Western and design partner VOA Associates of Chicago came up with an improved design for the two, 138,000-sq-ft, three-story brigade/battalion headquarters it is responsible for delivering in January 2011.

“Since the $50 million award to Archer Western, the Army Corps has since updated the standard brigade/battalion design to match the proposed changes submitted by the Walsh/VOA Chicago team,” says Walsh Group spokesman Edward Thomphsen.

Sundt received an $87-million contract for unaccompanied enlisted personnel housing and a $123-million contract for a vehicle maintenance shop, oil and hazardous materials storage buildings, a hangar and parking facilities.

Au Authum Ki is working on two infantry brigade dining facilities as part of a $17-million contract.

The corps expects to award a contract this spring to construct a building for the 1st Armored Division and next year to award the first $150-million to $200-million contract for a multiphased hospital campus project. In addition, the Corps will let smaller jobs to build child development centers, fire stations, chapels and other support facilities.

Other work in El Paso “Public work is strong for 2009,” adds Ed Anderson, Other work in El Paso president of Associated General Contractors of El Paso and president of Diversified Interiors of El Paso. “Between Fort Bliss, the University of Texas El Paso and Thomason Children’s Hospital, there’s a large volume of work, but the private side is slow.”

The university has several construction projects in various stages of completion.

Page & Associates Contractors is building the Multistory Laboratory building at Armarillo College as well as several other projects at the college. Photo courtesy of Page & Associates.

C.F. Jordan recently completed construction of the $12-million, 41,000-sq-ft Foster and Stevens Basketball Complex at UTEP, with practice courts for men and women, locker facilities and offices.

Vaughn Construction of Houston broke ground in November on the $60-million, 132,000-sq-ft College of Health Sciences and School of Nursing at UTEP, designed by PageSoutherlandPage of Dallas and Carl Daniel Architects of El Paso, and scheduled for completion in April 2011. The building will replace a nearly 40-year-old, off-campus facility. “We are upgrading with the latest technology and resources needed for a modern education,” says Bob Anders, dean of the school of nursing. “There will be common areas to foster student interaction, so it’s a learning community.”

UTEP also selected Vaughn to build its $70-million, 140,000-sq-ft Chemistry and Computer Science Building. Groundbreaking was in March, with completion scheduled for 2011.

Robins & Morton of Birmingham, Ala., is building the $190-million, 596,077-sq-ft, 140-bed University Medical Center of El Paso, formerly the R.E. Thomason General Hospital, children’s hospital addition in El Paso. The El Paso County Hospital District sold $120 million in general obligation bonds in 2008 to build El Paso’s first children’s hospital. Voters approved the bond sale in 2007.

The city has supported downtown redevelopment activities, including a $5-million renovation of the Civic Center Plaza, designed by Carl Daniel and now under construction, and an $8-million to $12-million renovation of the Abraham Chaves Theatre, in design by Carl Daniel.

On the private side, C.F. Jordan is restoring the century-old, 12-story Mills Building in downtown El Paso. It will remain an office building. Paul Bauer, vice president of the commercial group for C.F. Jordan, was not at liberty to release a cost on the private project.

F.T. James Construction of El Paso recently completed an approximately $20-million renovation and conversion of the abandoned International Hotel into a 200-room DoubleTree Hotel.

Lubbock Turner Construction Co. of Dallas in a joint venture with Lee Lewis Lubbock Construction of Lubbock expects to complete this summer the $47-million Overton Hotel and Conference Center. The project is a public-private partnership, with the city of Lubbock paying for the 45,000-sq-ft, two-story conference center and Garfield Traub Development of Dallas and 1859 Historic Hotels of Galveston funding the 15-story, 177,000-sq-ft, 305-room lodging facility in the 325-acre Overton Park redevelopment area adjacent to Texas Tech University.

“The conference center is something the city wanted, and it helped get the hotel development going,” says Dave Welber, project executive with Turner.

Amarillo Western Business began construction on a $31-million, two-year Amarillo renovation and new terminal building at Rick Husband Amarillo International Airport this spring. The company also is expanding the Bell Helicopter Textron Amarillo Military Aircraft Assembly Center at the airport. The $18-million project is scheduled for completion this summer.

Health care and education continue to be good markets in Amarillo, says Stan Cotgreave, president of Page & Associates Contractors in Amarillo. The company received a $50-million construction-manager-at-risk contract to build and renovate multiple projects at Amarillo College’s campuses, culminating from a successful 2007 bond election. The work is scheduled to span five years.

Page & Associates recently completed a parking lot and an addition to a central energy plant at the college’s Washington Street campus. It also is building an $8.5-million, three-story Science Lab Building at that campus.

At Amarillo College’s West campus, Page & Associates is renovating Building B and recently began work on a $10.8-million, three-story Nursing & Dental Health Center.

Page & Associates also is constructing a new $15-million intermediate school, for fifth and sixth graders, for the Dumas Independent School District in Dumas. Cotgreave says his firm plans to break ground later this year on an addition to an elementary school and renovations at the Dumas junior and senior high schools.