Sep 1 2015
Building Design + Construction (BD+C) magazine has ranked Balfour Beatty Construction the No. 6 general contractor based on 2014 U.S. revenue in its annual Giants 300 Report, which ranks the leading firms in the AEC industry for building-type revenue, green building work, BIM revenue, and more.
Based on a year in which the company completed 549 projects in North America totaling over 27 million square feet, the report reinforces Balfour Beatty’s strong commitment to client advocacy and continuous innovation that has resulted in an 82 percent repeat customer rate over the past five years.
Building Design + Construction also ranked Balfour Beatty high in multiple market sectors, including top 10 rankings in eight sector-specific categories. Throughout 2014, the company continued building momentum with high-profile new project wins across multiple sectors, including $1 billion in new healthcare projects.
Following are Balfour Beatty’s Giants 300 top five BD+C rankings by building sector:
- No. 2: Multifamily Sector
- No. 4: K-12 School Sector
- No. 5: Office Sector
- No. 5: Retail Sector
- No. 5: BIM Construction Firms
- No. 6: Government Sector
- No. 7: Green Building Firms
- No. 10: Reconstruction Firms
Committed to excellence in all areas, the company continuously innovates to eliminate waste and inefficiency from the construction process. For example, an integrated Balfour Beatty Construction team reduced design, procurement and delivery costs from $1.95 billion to $1 billion for one client by optimizing the use of off-site construction methodologies. Also in 2014, the company delivered the $700 million, 1.9-million-square-foot, 862-bed Parkland Hospital [LINK TO VIDEO HERE] project ahead of schedule and under budget. To deliver the largest single-phase public hospital building in the nation, the team leveraged proprietary lean construction principles, extensive use of building information modeling (BIM), off-site manufacturing, pull-planning, and centralized digital document management.
Additional representative milestones and recognition achieved by the Balfour Beatty Construction team in 2014 include:
- Leading in sustainable building practices: Balfour Beatty Construction’s $137 million Edith Green Wendell Wyatt Federal Building [LINK TO VIDEO HERE] high-performance green building project in Portland, Ore. was named “Sustainable Project of the Year” by the Portland Business Journal. The American Institute of Architects (AIA) and its Committee on the Environment also named the project one of the nation’s top 10 examples of sustainable architecture and green design solutions that protect and enhance the environment. The project also was recognized with a national award of merit in the “Building Renovation” category by the Associated General Contractors of America (AGC).
- Growth in healthcare: In Houston, Memorial Hermann Healthcare System selected Balfour Beatty Construction to provide preconstruction and construction services for a $533 million renovation and expansion of the Texas Medical Center campus. The master plan project includes construction of the Hermann Pavilion 2, a 17-story hospital that will provide the Texas Medical Center with more than one million square feet of expanded emergency room, operating room, intensive care, and administrative support capacity. In addition to completing the new Parkland Hospital project, Modern Healthcare recently ranked Balfour Beatty Construction No. 7 in its Construction & Design Survey.
- Focus on innovation and technology: Balfour Beatty Construction teams took top honors at the Seattle AEC Hackathon 1.2. Hacking apps built on virtual reality, 3D modeling and productivity technologies, the two teams combined to take first place overall and win the ‘Unreal Challenge’ with solutions designed to solve real-world “pain points” in the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industry. The hackathon took place at the Pacific Northwest Center for Construction Research and Education at the University of Washington.
At the $800 million DFW International Airport project [LINK TO CASE STUDY HERE], Balfour Beatty Construction’s use of a hybrid cloud digital documents solution manages tens of thousands of pages of construction drawings, specifications and additional construction documentation in a 100 percent electronic format. With the project team, owner, architect and subcontractors all equipped with a mobile devices and accessing the same set of construction documents, the team’s digital documents solution has saved a reported $5 million in paper reprographics costs - that’s 9,000 pounds of paper.
- New ways of thinking about corporate office spaces: Mark Konchar, Balfour Beatty Construction’s chief of enterprise development, co-authored Change Your Space, Change Your Culture, a new book that explores the workplace of the future and how workspace design can produce a culture of innovation. In it, Konchar and the book’s authors lay out strategies for businesses to transform their organizations by creating spaces that help stimulate ideas, energize people and transform culture. Fast Company recently featured the book and Konchar’s role as an expert on the subject.