Design-build team of Walsh, SOM and Murphy Group persevered through curveballs to recreate Chicago's Ellis Island as two hotels.

In 2020 our Best Projects entrants rebuillt, adapted and reused better.

The cost of achieving LEED Silver existing buildings for a more than 100-year-old structure is considerably more than for new construction.

After sitting vacant for nearly 15 years, the iconic Flashcube building in downtown Kansas City is once again lighting up the neighborhood.<

The 60-year-old bridge spanning the Minnesota River has been replaced with a twin-structure crossing that provides long-needed added traffic capacity while also eliminating flooding issues at the approaches.

Taking 106 bridge piers down to 52 on the Illinois Tollway’s Central Tri-State/I-294 Mile-Long Bridge meant bringing in the largest California wide-flange concrete beams ever used in Illinois.

Despite the need to complete unplanned emergency repairs while working in the Mississippi River during the winter months, the miter gate anchorages project was completed with zero recordable incidents and zero lost-time injuries. 

To help develop and assess new techniques for capturing stormwater runoff before it enters the combined sanitary sewer system, the Kansas City Water Services Dept. piloted a green infrastructure demonstration project that aims to reduce overflows by more than 20%.

Biogas once used to power the recovery facility’s combined heat and power system is now generating revenue for the city, thanks to an $8.6-million heat and electrical generation system upgrade.

These 80-year-old structures are critical components of a system that ensures consistent navigability and access along the Mississippi River from Minnesota to the Gulf Coast.

The TCU Amphitheater at White River State Park in downtown Indianapolis has been a staple of outdoor concerts and events for nearly 20 years. In 2018, the city announced an expansion and awarded the task to Shiel Sexton Co. and Power & Sons Construction. 

The 26,000-seat home of FC Cincinnati is not only one of the largest soccer-specific stadiums in Major League Soccer, it’s also one of its most architecturally complex.

The $19.5-million Muscatine Organics Recycling Center is one of just three municipally owned food waste recycling facilities in the U.S. and the only one in the Midwest.

To create the new 11,000-sq-ft SOS Children’s Villages Illinois - Roosevelt Square Community Center, the team designed and built a single-story cross-laminated timber superstructure—with columns, beams and a roof structure that were all executed using CLT.

Located on a peninsula at the confluence of three branches of the Chicago River, crews on the 628,500-sq-ft Wolf Point East project faced significant challenges accessing an already dense urban site.

Cantilevered tiers of four and five floors and a scalloped facade of curtain wall and architectural metal make 100 Above the Park a striking design on St. Louis’ western skyline.<

It’s not easy tinkering with an iconic structure, but that’s what Clayco had to do with Chicago’s famous Marshall Fields State Street building.

Exact Sciences is a Madison, Wis.-based molecular diagnostics and early cancer detection laboratory analysis provider.

The former General Growth Partners building site was one of the few locations available on Wacker Drive to place a tall building, but also one of the most difficult.

The FII High-Performance Computing Data Center is a 100-ft-tall, 28,000-sq-ft glass sphere that’s the centralized network and data center control hub for the Foxconn campus in the Wisconn Valley.

One Innovation Drive—the official address for this 205,000-sq-ft consolidated headquarters and manufacturing facility—is a testament to the sustainability commitment by furniture maker Norix as the project evolved from its original goal of basic LEED certification to LEED Gold.

With nearly 800 million gallons of combined sewer overflows discharged annually from Lick Run, the Metropolitan Sewer District of Greater Cincinnati sought a creative solution that would reduce CSO and greatly improve water quality of Lick Run, Mill Creek and the Ohio River.

Turning an abandoned Kmart into a school for 400 underserved students when another site fell through was a tall order for JGMA and McShane Construction.

While drawing plans for Detroit’s 28,000-sq-ft Marygrove Early Childhood Education Center, lead architect Marlon Blackwell and general contractor Barton Malow met with parents, caregivers and existing child-care providers in the area to receive input on the center’s design aesthetic and services to really get a sense of community needs.

Italian piazzas inspire the layout of this three-story, 124,000-sq-ft K-8 replacement school.

For its new Chicago office, Gilbane created a workspace that also serves as a company showroom, exhibiting the contractor’s project portfolio and demonstrating its people-first approach.

In just 33 weeks, an abandoned 130,000-sq-ft big-box retail space was transformed into an office and community center that provides health and wellness services.

Chicago’s Lakefront Trail Pedestrian Bridge incorporates architectural steel railings and panels, custom steel deck nosing and a LED lighting system to improve visibility.

On Nov. 11, 2020, a trucking accident on the Brent Spence Bridge—a key thoroughfare between Covington, Ky., and Cincinnati—caused a fire that damaged the double-decker cantilevered truss bridge’s upper deck floor system steel, drainage, deck, barriers, electrical components and the lower deck’s overlay.

Adjacent to one of the largest college football stadiums in the U.S. and situated on a site of a decommissioned power plant, Michigan State University’s STEM Teaching and Learning Facility faced a mountain of challenges. 

The $59-million, 146,000-sq-ft Iowa State University Student Innovation Center was designed to be flexible. Unlike so many buildings on campus, the SIC was not defined by one college, user group or entity as the sole occupant.

The SSM St. Louis University Hospital Medical Campus renewal project is the first new hospital built in St. Louis in nearly 100 years.

Built as a public-private partnership—a first for the U.S. Dept. of Veterans Affairs—this three-level, 157,000-sq-ft outpatient care facility maximized the benefits of construction manager at-risk project delivery and concurrent designer-contractor collaboration.

Designed to replicate the warmth and flow of a private health care experience within a public health department, the new Will County Dept. of Public Health aims to meet the needs of a population that is expected to nearly double in the next 30 years.

The new Johnson County Courthouse in Olathe, Kan., consolidates the 10th Judicial District Court, the district attorney’s office and supporting spaces into a seven-story cast-in-place concrete structure.

Red Rock Dam, a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers facility on the Des Moines River near Pella, Iowa, got a new powerhouse courtesy of Stantec’s design and a new generation license from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

The $670-million West Riverside Energy Center (WREC) in Beloit, Wis., provides 730 MW of reliable power. This combined-cycle facility can ramp its output up and down quickly to deal with shortages or surpluses.

The 35,000-sq-ft, 850-seat church utilizes insulated concrete forms (ICF) for the basement and first-level exterior walls, giving the structure increased energy efficiency and added resilience against extreme temperatures and weather events.

The St. Louis Zoo  Primate Canopy Trails are home to 40 primates representing 14 different species. When lead design firm PGAV Destinations and general contractor Tarlton Corp. began work on the 35,000-sq-ft expansion to the existing primate house in late 2019, one of their biggest challenges was planning work around chimpanzees, lemurs and colobus monkeys. 

With the goal of balancing environmental protection and aviation safety, Short Elliott Hendrickson designed an alternative alignment for the main runway at Duluth Sky Harbor.

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

Dodge offers data on 2021 construction starts for billings in the Columbus/Cincinnati area.

Updates about construction professionals across the great Midwest.

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