Illinois Report

Weak private sector demand and diminished state and local construction budgets have shrunk construction employment in Illinois.

The state’s construction jobs totaled 198,500 in June, down 19,100 or 8.8% from the June 2009 figure of 217,600.

“Nationwide, we’ve seen unprecedented levels of unemployment in our industry,” says Al Leitschuh, president of the Builders Association, the Chicago-area chapter of the Associated General Contractors of America. “We’ve seen shades of improvement here and there, but the drop in employment didn’t happen in one day and it’s not going to improve that way, either.

“In Illinois, in particular, they’re still building schools, hospitals and doing road work. On the other hand, there are many more companies bidding for those jobs than there may have been in the past.”

Leitschuh adds that because of the decreased workloads, “many of our members have taken the opportunity to increase their training. We’re confident that when the economy does rebound completely, those companies will be well positioned for future success.”

In the industrial sector, Jeffrey A. Raday, president of McShane Construction Co. of Rosemont, says the only new development business today and for the foreseeable future is highly specialized build-to-suits. “Any user that can possibly utilize an existing vacant building will do so due to the potential spread between fitting into an existing facility and building new,” he says.

The biggest inhibitors to a more rapid recovery continue to be lack of new debt being offered by both big and small banks, Raday says.

Infrastructure Some large infrastructure work is plugging away. In downstate Roxana, near St. Louis, the Wood River WRB Refinery is undergoing a $3.6-billion expansion. The joint effort of Calgary-based EnCana and Houston-based ConocoPhillips will increase processing capacity and allow the facility to refine sediment-laden crude oil from Canada’s oil sands area.

A 2,150-mi-long, underground Keystone pipeline owned by ConocoPhillips and TransCanada Corp., an energy infrastructure firm, will transmit the 590,000 barrels of oil per day from Alberta, Canada.

Irving, Texas-based Fluor Corp. and Bechtel Power Corp. of San Francisco are overseeing the project, which is expected to begin operation in 2011.

Chicago’s Calumet Water Reclamation Plant, dating back to the 1920s, is undergoing a multiphase, $500-million construction upgrade program. Phase one, a $120-million project that involved the construction of a 600-million-gallon pump building, screen building and pump discharge line, began in 2007 and is scheduled for completion this year.

The $230-million phase two, slated to be complete in early 2012, includes building a “grit” building to house eight rectangular grit chambers and constructing 12 cast-in-place, 160-ft-diameter circular settling tanks.

“The overall project is roughly 70% complete,” says Marty Platten, project manager for Chicago-based F.H. Paschen, S.N. Nielsen, which is the managing partner in a joint venture with Elgin-based IHC Construction Co. serving as contractor.

Roads Illinois lawmakers approved a six-year road construction plan this year that will create 167,000 jobs and total $12.8 billion, according to the Illinois Dept. of Transportation. More than 40% of the total will be for maintaining existing roads, with 22% for bridge maintenance and 25% for relieving congestion.

Significant roadwork downstate includes the relocating of Interstate 70 and construction of the $670-million Mississippi River Bridge near East St. Louis into St. Louis.

Heavy spring rains halted progress on the project, which broke ground in April. “We’ve been flooded out since then,” says Mark Schnoebelen, project sponsor for Massman Construction/Traylor Bros./Alberici Constructors, a joint venture working on a $229-million contract on the bridge. “We have installed and tested a drilled shaft and that’s about it.”

Renovation A $118-million renovation of the Everett M. Dirksen U.S. Courthouse is underway. Completed in 1964, it was the first building Mies van der Rohe designed for Chicago’s Federal Plaza. It has 30 floors, 57 courtrooms, 11 federal government offices and is home of the nation’s third-largest federal district court.

Skidmore, Owings and Merrill of Chicago is the architect for the project, and Turner Construction, Chicago, is the general contractor. The major focus will be the replacement of the building’s nearly 50-year-old heating and ventilation, fire alarm and lighting systems.

“All of this construction is going on and the courts are remaining open,” says David Wilkinson, public affairs officer for the U.S. General Services Administration. “The construction is being done at night for the most part.”

Just a few blocks west of there, Prime Group plans to open JW Marriott Chicago Sept. 21 after its $400-million restoration of one of Chicago’s historic landmarks: the Continental & Commercial National Bank building designed by famed architect and city planner Daniel Burnham in 1914.

The 1-million-sq-ft project includes converting the first 12 floors of office space into a five-star hotel with 610 guest suites, public space meeting rooms, ballrooms, restaurant, kitchens, spa, fitness center and hotel support functions. The project also included 337,008 sq ft of renovated office space as well as 18,676 sq ft of high-end retail.

Designed by Chicago-based Lucien LaGrange Architects and built by Chicago-based Evans Construction/Consulting, the grand entrance features a three-story glass curtain wall that allows light to spill into the street and expose the hotel’s full lobby.

“It’s an extraordinary building that’s classical, and it has been renovated with a respectful view of that classicism but brought forward into the contemporary era,” says Don Faloon, executive vice president of Prime Group.

Education Also downtown, Roosevelt University is building a 32-story, $110-million facility at 425 S. Wabash. It will support a projected 50% increase in the number of full-time equivalent students at the Chicago Campus between 2007 and 2017. The Herman Crown Center is being demolished to make way for the 413,724-sq ft, 469-ft-tall building.

The first five floors will be devoted to student services, the next eight floors will be for academic classrooms, laboratories and offices and the top 17 floors will be an upscale residence hall for 600 students. Roosevelt expects to move into the facility in January 2012.

VOA is the architectural firm. The John Buck Co. is the development manager, and Power Construction Co. is the general contractor. All three firms have Chicago offices.

West of Chicago, the $88-million DeKalb High School, slated to open in fall 2011, should be fully enclosed by fall so interior work can occur this winter. The new building will hold 2,000 to 2,500 students.

Health Care With steel construction topping out in December, interior work is the main focus of the $915-million, 23-story Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. The 1.25-million-sq-ft hospital with 288 private beds, designed by Solomon Cordwell Buenz of Chicago and Zimmer Gunsul Frasca Architects of Portland, Ore., is slated to open in summer 2012. The general contractor is M.A. Mortenson Construction, which has a regional office in Chicago, and Power Construction.

On Chicago’s South Side, a $700-million, 1.2 million-sq-ft, 10-story New Hospital Pavilion on the University of Chicago Medical Campus began construction last year and should be complete by January 2013. The Rafael Vi�oly-designed, 240-bed adult hospital is being built by a joint venture of W.E. O’Neil Construction Co. of Chicago and the local office of Gilbane Building Co. of Providence, R.I.

A new $620 million, 806,000-sq-ft hospital for Rush University Medical Center on Chicago’s near West Side is scheduled to open in January 2012. Perkins+Will, Chicago, designed the 14-story facility’s unique butterfly-like shape. Powers/Jacobs, a Chicago joint venture, is the construction manager.

In the western suburbs, the $450-million, 866,000-sq-ft replacement for Elmhurst Memorial Hospital is being built. It will hold 259 private beds. The project is scheduled for completion in summer 2011.

In far southwest suburban Chicago, construction of the $400 million, 572,000-sq-ft replacement Silver Cross Hospital in New Lenox is scheduled to open in early spring 2012. It is designed by RTKL and built by M.A. Mortenson.

Downstate, Abraham Lincoln Memorial Hospital broke ground in June 2009 on a 58-acre site in Springfield. A $50-million, 116,000-sq-ft replacement hospital and health-care campus is under construction.