Balfour Beatty is also providing construction services as part of Denver Transit Partners on the Eagle P3 project, a $2.3-billion public-private partnership within Denver’s FasTracks light-rail program. Eagle P3 includes East Corridor commuter rail from downtown Denver to Denver International Airport, a commuter rail maintenance facility and segments of other rail corridors, with completion expected by 2017.
Weston Solutions
Driving solutions that deliver economic, social and environmental returns in hard-hit areas
Transit-oriented development in a recession is a risky business, and international developer Weston Solutions Inc. understood the risks when it initiated the first TOD project along Denver’s West Corridor FasTracks light-rail line, with construction expected to continue until 2013. Phase 1 of Garrison Station, pre-certified LEED Gold, is a 32,000-sq-ft office building that uses locally sourced and manufactured materials; low-flow water fixtures; a GreenGrid vegetated roof to manage storm water; energy-efficient, automated thermal and lighting controls; and systems to reduce power consumption.
Weston, also the contractor, expects to complete the project this spring.
A second phase “depends upon the market,” says Steve Blarr, Weston development director. “Weston is very bullish on Denver, with its light-rail construction and low vacancy rates.”
The West Chester, Pa.-based developer—employee owned since 2001 with 2010 gross revenues of approximately $500 million—specializes in environmental redevelopment of “impaired assets,” Blarr says.
Milender White Construction
Pushing project diversity with multifamily, solar and federal work across the West
Milender White Construction Co., Arvada, Colo., has made a splash in a number of markets in the last few years, chief among them multifamily and solar. At $33 million, the firm’s Residences at 29th Street in Boulder is one of the largest multifamily projects in the state and only one of a half-dozen multifamily jobs the firm has under way.
But it has been Milender White’s carefully calibrated push into the solar-panel market that has helped boost its total revenues in the last few years—$69 million last year, up from $41 million in 2009.
“The barriers in the wind market were too high for us,” says Bryon White, president. “But we’ve done panel installs at 30 sites in the last three months—that’s more than 10,000 modules.”
Milender White has also found its way into the federal market with the April acquisition of USFM, Louisville, Colo., a 15-year-old specialist in federal work.
That is enhanced by Milender White’s newly certified minority status with the Rocky Mountain Minority Supplier Development Council, an affiliate of the National Minority Supplier Development Council. That designation should open up more opportunities for the company to land projects related to casinos, solar retrofits and infrastructure work on Native American-owned land.
