Alabama Report

Varying growth rates produce mixed bag for construction

By Dana Crisson

Construction is booming in pockets of Alabama, says Bob Robicheaux, chair of the Department of Management, Marketing and Industrial Distribution at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

“Commercial construction is high in southern Alabama, from Montgomery through Mobile, and there is also a fair amount of commercial activity in the northern section of the state in the Huntsville/Redstone Arsenal area,” Robicheaux says. “The state is ideally positioned for commercial development from sales and branch offices of companies that want to expand outside of the Atlanta market.”

While commercial construction has slowed in the center of the state, retail construction is thriving in highly populated areas surrounding Birmingham, including Hoover and Trussville. Retail sales are down statewide except in these areas of population growth.

“The economy is flat but consumer consumption has not been affected in these areas yet,” Robicheaux adds. Rising gas prices and the unemployment rate are other crucial factors. The statewide unemployment rate is over 4%, but it is below 3% in Huntsville, Tuscaloosa and Mobile.

In Huntsville, construction was completed in April on The Westin Hotel’s new Bridge Street Town Centre, a mixed-use shopping and entertainment complex located adjacent to Cummings Research Park, the second-largest technology park in the nation.

“This is the first Westin Hotel in Alabama,” says Heather Tuskowski, project manager for Winter Construction Co. of Atlanta. The 208-room 11-story hotel includes 74 luxury residential units occupying the top five floors.

The first floor incorporates a concierge area, 8,000-sq-ft ballroom, boardroom, restaurant, exercise room, indoor-outdoor swim-through pool and three banks of elevators. The cost was $50 million.

The Bridge Street Town Centre complex features more than 70 upscale shops and restaurants, a 14-screen Monaco Pictures theater and a six- story office tower. The property also includes a customer service center, 10-acre lake with gondola boats and watercraft rentals, carousel, fountains and a number of green open spaces.

Two large projects are under way in the center of the state. The University of Alabama at Birmingham is consolidating all its women’s reproductive health and neonatology services in a 10-story, 630,000-sq-ft building that encompasses an entire city block.

Megan Smith, spokesperson for Brasfield & Gorrie of Birmingham, says the facility will house the new Regional Neonatal Intensive Care Unit/Continuing Care Nursery on the first eight floors, with 120 patient rooms and 17 labor and delivery rooms. Professional offices will occupy the top two floors. 

A three-level pedestrian bridge will connect the new facility to the North Pavilion of the hospital. UAB Hospital is classified as an essential facility that has to survive seismic shocks, so construction includes a lead-shielded concrete vault with 4-ft-thick walls and floors.

Construction on the $151 million facility began in April 2007 and should be completed by December 2009.

A second Birmingham-area project is the new $50 million Bessemer High School on Premiere Parkway off Interstate 20/59. Woods Contracting Service of Bessemer began work on the project in December and the firm’s president, Chris Woods, says workers are currently moving 800,000 cu yds of dirt for the grading package. 

The 226,000-sq-ft school will incorporate a combination brick and masonry exterior with a Kalwall system for additional safety from impact, pressure relief and high-wind resistance.

Built on 72 acres, the new campus will feature computer, biology and chemistry labs and an athletic complex with a field house, baseball and softball fields, practice fields, an Olympic regulation track and a new football stadium. The project includes cutting two roads, extending the existing Premiere Parkway for 2,900 ft and building a new road called Tiger Circle that will encompass the entire campus.

The school is slated to open January 2010.

In the booming southern area of the state, Doster Construction and joint venture partner A. G. Gaston Construction, both of Birmingham, held the grand opening of another luxury hotel, the $170 million Renaissance Montgomery Hotel and Spa at the Convention Center.

The hotel is a 395,000-sq-ft, 4-star facility with 347 guest rooms and lavish presidential and governor’s suites overlooking the Alabama River. Also included are a 14,000-sq-ft ballroom, meeting rooms, exhibit space, restaurant and a 1,800-seat Performing Arts Center. A 615-car parking deck with a European-style spa is on the top level.

The hotel tower has a cast-in-place, post-tensioned concrete frame. The ballroom, restaurant, kitchen area and theater and exhibit hall expansion are constructed of structural steel with concrete slab on metal deck. The exterior facade is a combination of architectural precast concrete, composite metal panels, manufactured stone, granite and glazed curtain wall.

Meanwhile, the $200 million renovation and addition to the RSA Judicial Building in Montgomery is the largest project in the state. Jesco Construction Inc. of Gulfport, Miss., began the project in March 2000 with a scheduled completion date of December 2010.

Foundation work began in June, says Billy Williams, Jesco vice president of construction and engineering in Alabama.

“This is a tight site in downtown Montgomery so we will be dealing with the traffic issues throughout the project,” Williams adds.

Construction includes a 12-story tower that will be built with a structural steel frame physically spanning over the Judicial Building. The other half of the structure will have a concrete frame. The exterior will incorporate limestone to blend in with the existing façade.

Another area project is the Montgomery County Detention Facility, built by Bell and Associates of Brentwood, Tenn., at a cost of $46.7 million. Project manager Elvis Butler says the project began in summer 2006 and is scheduled to be completed in December.

The six-story building in downtown Montgomery is a 700-bed steel fabricated cell addition that incorporates a bridge connector to the existing detention facility.

Work began in November on phase one of the Science and Engineering Complex at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, says Marty Martin, project manager for B. L. Harbert International of Birmingham.

The facility will include biology, chemistry, microbial and ecology labs; BSL-3 lab; research wing; and a U-shaped teaching wing with a center courtyard surrounded by limestone columns.

Accents include a $1 million limestone exterior with brickwork to match the classic architecture of the surrounding buildings on campus. Up to 300 workers are now onsite, and the cost of the project is $64 million.

The complex should be completed by June 2009.

The Allied Health Sciences Building, under construction on the campus of the University of South Alabama in Mobile, is a $42 million classroom and medical training facility. The building measures 186,000 sq ft in six levels with a frame of structural concrete with a full masonry and precast veneer.

Construction on the project, which began in July 2007, is progressing on schedule, and contractor White-Spunner Construction of Mobile, Ala., held a topping out ceremony in April. The facility is scheduled to open in fall 2009.

The facility contains traditional auditorium, classroom and office space, as well as fully equipped medical laboratories and examination rooms for all types of medical training. In addition, specialty areas are built for specific training, such as the life-size nursing simulation lab, a biomedical research lab and a multimedia lab.

“Campus administrators are excited because this facility combines all nursing and allied health features in one building to bring medical students back to the campus proper,” says Deborah Geiger, marketing manager at White-Spunner.

Flintco Cos. of Memphis, Tenn., one of the largest American Indian-owned construction companies in the world with more than 700 employees nationwide, is building a $120 million Poarch Creek Hotel and Casino in Atmore, Ala.

Flintco project director Derrick Knauss says construction began in August 2007 and is scheduled to complete in January. The casino will reach 16-story and 391,000-sq-ft and the hotel offers 236 guest rooms and four custom suites with fireplaces and marble entries.