ENR California assembled a group of judges with varying specialties and expertise in the construction industry to review, score and determine the winners of ENR's annual Regional Best projects competition.

The key new construction industry product resulted from a two-decade engineering push that culminated with a green manufacturing facility in Willows, Calif., a small town in the heart of the Sacramento Valley. 

Dodge offers data on 2021 construction starts for billings in the Portland area.

Dodge offers data on 2021 construction starts for billings in the Riverside area.

Relying on energy storage as a peak-capacity resource required a new building to safely house a battery energy storage system in Long Beach, Calif.

The $11-million project to raise Hell Hole Dam in Foresthill, Calif., was never going to be easy. Built in 1966, the earth-and-rock embankment dam impounds two rivers to form Hell Hole Reservoir in a rugged, remote location. 

To remediate seismic safety issues and enhance flood-handling capacity at the concrete thin-arch dam, the $32-million project called for cutting a notch in the existing structure, placing a new ogee-shaped spillway and installing reinforced armor at the dam’s base.

As part of the replacement of a critical bridge serving the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, the project team developed a strategy to install two 2.1-million-lb precast concrete bridge fenders to safeguard the structure from vessel impacts.

Located north of the library’s existing exterior wall, the 3,200-sq-ft addition creates space for children to learn, read and interact with parents and peers while preserving views of the neighboring Sweetwater River valley.

For more than 90 years, the old Royal Hawaiian Groin had helped protect Waikiki Beach in Honolulu, but its deteriorating condition required quick action.

Precision was a critical component for the first phase of the Vantage Data Centers campus in Santa Clara, Calif. From the clean, geometric designs to the prefabricated materials and careful placement of every light switch and alarm strobe, the two four-story buildings are precisely calibrated for maximum efficiency.

The 313,000-sq-ft, mixed-use building includes much needed affordable housing for UCLA Medical’s staff of residents, fellows and interns as well as retail space and underground parking.

As COVID-19 spread through Los Angeles County’s growing homeless population, the team designed, built and received final approvals in just 120 days for a 60,000-sq-ft interim housing facility.

Space was at a premium for this 89-unit, transit-oriented development because its foundation occupies the entire 33,381-sq-ft lot. But the constraints didn’t end there.

The show goes on at 50 Jones, a 14-story, 303-unit apartment project on the former site of the 1920s Granada Theatre in San Francisco. 

As an integral part of the historic Greystone Mansion, a 34-seat former motion picture theater underwent a face-lift to restore its distinctive interior design with 21st-century acoustics and audiovisual systems.

The newly expanded 17,000-sq-ft lobby creates a spacious, light-filled and welcoming experience for this 1980s high-rise office building.

Built during World War II, the Military Ocean Terminal Concord (MOTCO) is one of only two ship loading and offloading munitions facilities in the country.

Built in 1893, San Francisco’s Market Street Railway powerhouse was once the country’s largest electrical generating facility. The historic brick building that powered the city’s first streetcar has now gone to the dogs, cats and other small animals as the city’s Animal Control and Care facility.

The new 10-acre waterfront retail center boasts outdoor plazas, patio dining and more than 90,000 sq ft of retail, boutiques, restaurants, a bank and marine office space, all clad in a variety of modern architectural motifs.

This 160,000-sq-ft structure features four stories of adaptable, creative workspace in the commercially robust and rapidly developing area of Westside LA.

An unexpectedly long rainy period seemed certain to overwhelm the high school’s new stormwater protection plan.

This 23,000-sq-ft building is the first step in a campus-wide strategic effort to reimagine the modern learning environment.

Students at the independent college prep school received a unique lesson in construction planning and execution via the complex three-phase project that brings the historic campus into the 21st century.

Located in the heart of West Oakland, the 45,000-sq-ft facility supports a central kitchen for district-wide food production, a culinary arts education center and an urban farm.

The Park Point Landscape project transformed four acres of flat Silicon Valley land into a lush environment of rolling hills topped with native plants and grasses. 

Even under the best conditions, the condensed 22-week timeline to convert a former pen manufacturing plant into the app-based health care company’s new 76,000-sq-ft headquarters would have been challenging.

A two-year overhaul has transformed two ordinary spec buildings into a showpiece home for a leading Bay Area technology company.

Close preconstruction collaboration between Caltrans and the project team yielded a host of cost-saving innovations that helped reduce the budget by nearly $40 million while also helping expedite the process of elevating SR 58 across U.S. Route 395 and an adjacent freight rail line.

The smoother, safer path afforded by the three-mile truck climbing lane and wider shoulders belies the unexpected challenges encountered during the three-year construction process.

Taking advantage of reduced traffic volumes resulting from statewide pandemic-related closures, the project team and Caltrans partnered to fast-forward this complex deck replacement on a Bay Area artery that typically handles nearly a quarter-million vehicles each day.

Created to provide a nexus for filmmaking and computational media, the facility features media labs, classrooms, experimental content creation space, a sound stage, post-production editing suites and a 100-seat Dolby Atmos screening theater.

The three-story, 36,000-sq-ft academic building provides a much needed new home for the college’s growing computer science department as well as a permanent makerspace. Unlike traditional campus structures, the building is a physical embodiment of the college’s forward-looking culture.

Pursuing LEED Gold accreditation and delivered via progressive design-build, the innovative $96-million, 115,000-sq-ft building is a long-awaited athletics and educational resource for the college and surrounding community.

Overcoming potential delays ranging from steel fabrication and permits to wildfires and the global pandemic, the three-level facility was substantially complete just two years after construction began.

The single-story, 10,000-sq-ft banquet hall marks one of the California’s community college system’s first applications of public-private financing.

The cancer clinic is the second in a series of prototypes Cedars-Sinai is using to expand offerings and develop new ways of delivering enhanced medical care.

The three-story tilt-up building expands critical medical services to historically underserved areas of San Diego County.

This laboratory challenges the traditional sterile aesthetic of research facilities by combining three warehouses into a single incubator lab, augmented by a three-story addition. The complex MEP system addresses specific operational requirements for offices and labs.

Located in rural northeastern California, the three-building, 28,000-sq-ft hospital complex is a critical access facility serving a 4,500-sq-mile area.

In an effort to combat heat gain in urban areas and mitigate the effects of climate change, researchers in Arizona are evaluating reflective coatings for roadways.

Construction on the 37,000-sq-ft building was on track for early completion in mid-March 2020 when COVID-19 shelter-in-place (SIP) orders brought work to a screeching halt. Yet within 48 hours, the project team was ready to safely resume work, deploying protective equipment and new safety protocols that, under normal circumstances, might have required several weeks to plan and implement. 

Located on a 4.7-acre former brownfield, the two-story library and arts center provide the centerpiece of the city’s effort to create a walkable arts and community center.

Despite initial concern that the project might be vulnerable to as much as $1 million in cost overruns, the two-phase, $36.5-million construction program was ultimately completed under budget thanks to innovative value engineering and negotiated change order requests.

The $344-million, five-story connection between Terminals 1 and 2 provides nearly 240,000 sq ft for ticket counters, baggage carousels, a bus gate and an additional screening checkpoint as well as a vertical circulation core that will connect with LAX’s future automated people mover. 

The relocated Patsaouras Bus Plaza provides LA Metro’s transit users easier connections to bus lines serving Union Station. By widening both sides of the 30-year-old El Monte Busway Bridge, the project team created a 200-ft-long, 18-ft-wide concrete platform with benches, ticket machines and wayfinding kiosks, all covered by a steel canopy.

Totaling only one-quarter mile in length, the $172-million AirTrain extension significantly enhanced connectivity at San Francisco International Airport.