ENR Southwest's 2014 Owner of the Year: City of Phoenix

As the largest and most diverse municipality in the Southwest, the city of Phoenix has pushed the boundaries of development and construction. As an owner, the city has worked with nearly every construction firm in the Southwest and has influenced scores of others with its drive to collaborate and streamline its construction processes.

The city's far-reaching influence includes acting as a permitter, developer and customer. But it is both the city's foresight and the depth of its projects that have earned Phoenix recognition as ENR Southwest's Owner of the Year. Industry firms say they clamor to work on jobs for the city, thanks to Phoenix's high level of professionalism and construction knowledge.

"I want the city of Phoenix to be a city of choice," says Wylie Bearup, city engineer. "I want us to be a public owner that good architects, engineers and contractors want to do work for—and to do that we need to have fair and open selection processes, we need to treat them fairly, we need to pay on time and we need to be consistent in our contract documents. All of that goes into my goal to make city of Phoenix an owner of choice."

Since 2006, Phoenix has donated land and $233 million in direct investment toward the development of the Arizona State University downtown campus. The next stage is the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law, a $129-million, six-story building toward which the city has dedicated $12 million.

Nearby, the city has also been a major player in the decade-long development of the Phoenix Biomedical Campus, where it has crafted a public-private partnership with the University of Arizona, T-Gen and health care providers on the 28-acre, multi-building project that will total more than 6 million sq ft upon completion. The city donated the land for the Phoenix Biomedical Campus—which had originally been acquired for a National Football League stadium that never materialized—and provided a $63-million investment. Currently under construction is the University of Arizona Cancer Center, a $100-million facility.

Construction, engineering and design firms have praised the city's performance as an owner engaged in the entire design and construction process, whether the project scope is big or small.

"Each building the city successfully implements is an ambitious iconic architectural and community vision hinged upon absolute commitment with unyielding support from every project team member," says Peter Berg, design-build project executive with the Phoenix office of DPR Construction. The firm is currently working with the city on the creation and construction of the Phoenix Biomedical Campus.

Other contractors praised the city's fiscal discipline. "As owners of the largest design-build-operate water treatment plant in the Southwest with the Lake Pleasant Water Treatment Plant, [the city] established a new standard for public projects and demonstrated leadership in alternative delivery methods which save taxpayers millions of dollars and deliver better quality projects, faster," says Bo Calbert, president of McCarthy Building Cos.' Southwest division in Phoenix.

In addition to crafting a downtown educational and health care hub, the city has nearly $1.2 billion of capital improvement projects on the books. The city's three biggest capital investments—and the ones most closely associated with the construction industry—are streets, aviation and water.

Active Departments, Many Projects

Annual funding approaches $100 million to maintain and update the city's 4,849 miles of roads and 95,592 traffic signals. Bearup, also the director of the streets department and a driving force behind the Alliance of Construction Excellence, a collaborative industry group sponsored by the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at Arizona State University, says the city has its hands full with a plethora of city projects as the post-war city begins to show its age.

Since the city has both aging central areas and new development on the periphery, new construction, redevelopment and renovation are major points of emphasis. In downtown Phoenix, for example, most work is focused upon reconfiguring older systems, such as the recent construction of a downtown storm drain relief system.

"We've been in transition for some time now" between aging at the core and growing on the fringes, Bearup says, adding that the city must balance adding new services to support continued growth and expansion while focusing more and more on maintenance in the city's core.

"It isn't one or the other in our case, it is both at the same time in different areas," he says.

Troy Hayes, engineer at Phoenix Water Services, says projects like the two $6-million to $7-million, 3-million-gallon concrete water reservoirs under construction in north Phoenix are related to growth at the city's edges, and are typical of the types of projects that the city undertakes on a regular basis to foster this growth.

"We knew where we were going to need storage to support the system, but it got delayed when the economy slowed down," Hayes says. "Now we are anticipating more development, so we are moving ahead to get these reservoirs into the system."

The $726.7-million water program is funded with water operating revenue, nonprofit corporation bonds, impact fees and a partnership with the city of Mesa on the Val Vista Water Treatment Plant joint venture.

Nothing Left Up in the Air

The balance of renovation and new construction are evident at Sky Harbor Airport, owned by the city and one of the busiest airports in the world.

The $244-million second phase of the PHX Sky Train, being built by a joint venture of McCarthy and Kiewit, will make airport shuttle buses a thing of the past. The train is scheduled to serve all terminals by early 2015. The Phoenix office of Hensel Phelps Construction built the $644-million first phase, which began operating last year. In 2012, ENR Southwest awarded Sky Train's first phase with its Best Project award in both the transportation and safety categories.

The city is also launching an approximately $500-million renovation of Terminal 3 in late 2014 or early 2015. Although renovating the 35-year-old building is still in the planning stages, the goal is to complete the job in phases over the next six years. The 310,000-sq-ft project will include two new security checkpoints of 40,000 sq ft and 20,000 sq ft each. A new concourse will also be added to the south side of the terminal and will total 270,000 sq ft.

"Right now, we are doing conceptual design," says Kyle Kotchou, acting aviation deputy director for Sky Harbor Airport. "At this point the budget isn't really going to be set until the pre-planning phase is over. We are still assessing the existing conditions by doing things like laser modeling."

Security is typically high at most high-profile construction sites, but operating a large international airport brings federal guidelines into the equation. All trucks must be escorted if working in the operating area and stockpiling of supplies and materials is nearly impossible.

Just as is the case with most other city departments, the airport is proceeding with projects of all sizes. For example, Terminal 4 will undergo flooring and other changes in the coming year.