Twenty-five projects out of the 55 that made the print issue of our annual Top Projects Starts. The list here includes those as well as the additional 30 in order of total construction cost.

Topping the list is the $1.3-billion-plus Central Texas highway project, SH 130, segments five and six.

The list of 25 highlighted projects in this feature, with a total combined value of $4.4 billion, is dominated by transportation and military construction. Higher education, research and health-care projects are also frequent in the mix, while K-12 and is also keeping contractors busy across the region.

All Top Project Starts featured here have construction cost of more than $70 million. An additional 19, to be featured with these online, are valued at more than $50 million, and eleven projects over $35 million and below $50 million are included. The total value of the fifty-five projects is $5.35 billion.

The majority of the projects listed here are expected to be complete in 2011. Fifteen of the projects use building information modeling, or BIM. Ten are seeking Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification from the U.S. Green Building Council. Many others are still using green-building practices.

Read on to learn more about each project and key facts such as start and expected completion dates and firms involved.

Texas Construction magazine strives to gather as much information about building activity in our region as possible. This feature is not considered by the editors to be a ranking, and could never be an all encompassing list. It does, we believe, accurately represent projects under way, which broke ground in the previous year.