Covering the Industry’s News
Texas Style
P.O. Box 791290 San Antonio, Texas 78279-1290
PRSRT. STD. U.S. POSTAGE PAID DALLAS, TX PERMIT #1451
Change Service Requested
San Antonio Dallas/Fort Worth Austin Houston South Texas
Dallas/Fort Worth
CONSTRUCTION
™
Happy New Year Dallas -Fort Worth
The Industry’s Newspaper www.constructionnews.net
H
(210) 308-5800
H
Volume 14
H
Number 1
H
JANUARY 2016
Venture gained
RK acquires RRA
L-R: President/CEO Bill Fraser, CFO Michael Rosen, Vice President Hal Adams, senior project manager Brown Jones and Vice President Guy Toro AIA
Sarah M. Cole and Charles D. Neel
T
wo companies – one from California and the other from Michigan – have combined forces for a new North Texas venture. Irvine, CA-headquartered Carlson, which designs and builds major technology and mission critical facilities, has partnered with Walbridge, a Detroitbased global construction services firm with expertise in multiple industries. The new creation, Carlson Walbridge Group LLC has been established at 14901 Quorum Drive, Ste. 595 in Dallas. Bill Fraser, PE, president and CEO of Carlson Walbridge, says both companies bring different strengths to the table. The venture leverages resources between the two companies, which will re-
main independent and privately owned. “Carlson has great experience in designing and constructing mission critical facilities for customers across the nation,” Fraser says. “Walbridge has been eager to expand into new industry segments and the growth in technology-driven facilities offers great new opportunities. With Walbridge’s size and Carlton’s knowledge of the requirements of clients in this sector, we offer a great combination of size, resources and expertise. “One of our first objectives is to get in front of large enterprise clients with technology-driven facility needs who seek a design-build solution from one company,” Fraser continues. “We have
R
aba Kistner Inc. (RK), a San Antonio-based project management, engineering, testing and environmental firm has operated in the Dallas area since 2009 with nearly 40 employees, but it recently dug deeper to expand its presence in the Metroplex. In December, RK acquired Dallas archaeology firm Red River Archaeology (RRA), which specializes in providing cultural resource compliance services to engineering and environmental consulting firms, as well as energy and transportation sector clients in Texas and Oklahoma. “The purchase of RRA aligned with Raba Kistner’s growth strategy for our cultural resources compliance services,”
continued on Page 18
says Tom Burr, senior VP and COO of Raba Kistner Environmental. “It also facilitates RK’s plans for an enhanced presence in the North Texas and Oklahoma markets.” Red River Archaeology will begin conducting business under the name of Raba Kistner Environmental Inc., formerly Red River Archaeology, in the first quarter of 2016 and will completely discontinue use of the Red River Archaeology name by the fourth quarter. The Dallas office, located at 10100 N. Central Expressway, Suite 160, consists of four archaeologists. Sarah M. Cole, RPA, serves as the office manager and Principal Investigator and Charles D. Neel serves as the Senior Archaeologist. continued on Page 18
Simply heavenly
A
lthough the Church of the Incarnation was founded as the Cathedral Chapel of the Incarnation in 1879, it didn’t settle at Dallas’ 3966 McKinney Avenue until 1927, when a modest brick chapel was secured for the purpose. Nearly 90 years later, this Episcopal church – which grew into one of the Diocese’s largest parishes – needed new spaces for its expanding congregation. The plan called for 60,000 sf of new worship and education space in the form of three buildings: a welcome center, an education building and a chapel – but it wasn’t as simple as constructing new spaces. The addition would need to complement the sweeping stained-glassed, Anglican-furnished neo-Gothic style of the property’s other buildings (with the exception of the Great Hall and the school building). Lee Lewis Construction Inc.’s superintendent Ricky Donithan, assistant su-
perintendent Jared Schafer, and project manager Jordan Wallace worked closely with HH Architects’ Gary Kirchoff and owner representatives Kyle Nix and Elias Bahar of Pritchard Associates Inc. to design and construct spaces that respected the past but prepared for the future. “The general challenge of this project was to provide a neo-Gothic-style building that incorporated green building practices while introducing 21st century building methods as to not impact the design visually,” Wallace explains. Once they began construction in March 2014, the team realized that honoring the church’s architectural style wouldn’t be the only challenge they would face in the project’s 21-month time span. “There were other challenges with weather that impacted drying in the The chapel is one of three new buildings Lee Lewis Construction Inc. built for the Church of the Incarnation in Dallas.
continued on Page 18