Northwest La. Report

Construction to maintain momentum through '06

By Angelle Bergeron

Although much of Louisiana is still reeling from the effects of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the northwest portion of the state is continuing in a positive growth pattern, seemingly unscathed by the disasters.

"We were not impacted by the storms other than people evacuating here and a lot of those people have gone other places," said Susan Beal, director of LSU at Shreveport's Center for Business and Economic Research. "At one point, we had between 25,000 and 30,000 people but you can drive through now and not even tell. We are back to pre-Katrina levels."

Although he has heard some grumblings about labor costs and material shortages since the hurricanes, Dr. Harold Christensen, an economics professor at Centenary College of Louisiana in Shreveport, La., said he has only heard anecdotal evidence of problems in the northwest part of the state.

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"What I haven't seen is any particular slowdown in construction jobs," he said. The inadequate labor force that is much-bemoaned further south isn't a reality in northwest Louisiana.

"I don't know if workers who have gone south have been replaced by others coming into the region, but we haven't had any problem here," Christensen said.

Beal said construction in the northwest region has been "fantastic" in 2005, in both commercial and residential markets.

"Whenever the interest rate is as low as it has been for the past seven or eight years, housing stock will flourish and businesses who were interested in leasing may become interested in building," Beal said. Reflecting the low interest rates, the northwest region has enjoyed a surge in apartment construction in recent years.

"We have a lot of commercial construction projects that have been in the works for a long time and multi-family residences that were online to be constructed before 2005," she said. "We also have some new affordable housing that is starting to go up in Shreveport, something Shreveport has been trying to put in place for a long time."

Consequently, when interest rates are low people have more disposable income, Beal said.

"We are attracting people from a wider radius because of all the retail development," she said, citing recent completion of the Shreveport Convention Center and a new shopping center on the Bossier City, La., side of the Red River.

"A little over 10% of Shreveport's non-agricultural workforce falls under the collective category of "eating, drinking, arts, entertainment, recreation, accommodations and casinos," Beal said.

It seems the area is gearing up to receive visitors with a variety of projects. Following is a sampling:

Convention Center Hilton Hotel, Shreveport. Walton Construction Co.'s Shreveport office is excited about building the $34.3 million Convention Center Hilton Hotel, which is scheduled for a soft opening of 150 rooms in mid-November, said Tommy Clark, the contractor's director of business development.

"The City of Shreveport wants it by November and we are doing everything we can to let the mayor cut the ribbon before he leaves office," Clark said. "Walton builds a lot of hotels around the country, but this is the first hotel in the Shreveport Division. I think there are opportunities for additional hotels in the city."

Since the Convention Center opened in January, it has been a challenge for the contractor to work around the facility's activities.

"It's an extremely small site, with limited access to only two sides of the building," Clark said. The 12-story, 314-room hotel is a concrete structure with precast concrete skin, which must be delivered and assembled in sequential order.

"It's going to be a challenge to schedule deliveries around the Convention Center traffic," Clark said.

Barksdale Interchange, Bossier City. Last summer, Austin Bridge & Road LP of Irving, Texas, began work on the long-awaited Barksdale Interchange and replacement of the westbound span of the Red River Bridge. The eastbound bridge was replaced several years ago. The contractor is scheduled to complete the $29.8 million contract by the fall of 2007.

"It's a bridge that, coincidentally, we built in the 1950s," said Tony Stehling, operations manager for Austin Bridge. "Now we're taking it down and putting a new one in its place."

To construct the new span, Austin Bridge has moved all traffic to the eastbound bridge and is extending the main fly spans over the existing piers to create the new westbound section.

"There are six piers that hold up the main part of the bridge over the river and they are adequate to support the new structure," Stehling said. "We're taking the concrete off, making it wider and adding the structural steel superstructure."

The A+B contract includes an incentive/penalty of $10,000 per day, so the contractor is fighting to make up for some early delays caused by Katrina.

"We had to get Coast Guard approval and our submittals were sent to the New Orleans headquarters just about the time they vacated their offices," Stehling said. "They will probably give us a few days because of that."

Also because of Katrina, Austin Bridge had to receive some equipment a little earlier than planned.

"We weren't necessarily ready to work, but because demand skyrocketed we had to take it earlier than we planned on," Stehling said.

Inner Loop Extension, Shreveport. James Construction Group of Baton Rouge is working on another DOTD project in the Shreveport area, the $14.6 million Inner Loop Extension, which is a 1.4 mi. extension of LA 3132 across the Bert Kouns Industrial Loop (LA 526). James started work on the project in August and expects to finish in February 2007, a month ahead of schedule.

"We're constructing two overpass bridges above Bert Kouns and the roadway ties into Flournoy Lucas Road," said Eric Lafitte, superintendent. "DOTD has plans to widen Fluornoy Lucas Road in the future and proceed with extending LA 3132 on the other side to the Caddo-Bossier Road."

The project is expected to alleviate some of the increased traffic from residential growth in the area as well as divert some truck traffic from Highway 1, Lafitte said.

The largest obstacle in the project will come when the contractor has to have some nighttime closures to set the girders. Although the bulk of the girders are Type III, the job requires two BT 72 girders to accommodate the bridge's 135-ft. spans.

James is setting up its own batch plant for the concrete pours, but the huge amount of dirt work (almost 500,000 yds. of embankment) is being handled by a subcontractor, Blount Brothers Construction of Shreveport.

"We have a lot of highway work going on in north Louisiana right now," said Lafitte, citing two recently-completed projects performed by James on Hwy. 167 near Ruston. "There are three more north of Ruston going on now."

U.S. 171 projects, Sabine Parish. Gilchrist Construction Co. Inc. of Alexandria is performing $20.4 million in bridge repairs on U.S. 171, Many to Zwolle.

The DOTD contract includes an 8-mi.-long bridge that is a southbound, two-lane roadway from Many to Zwolle.

"It's part of the effort to four-lane the highway from Shreveport to Lake Charles," said Brad Augustine, project manager.

The project involves a tremendous amount of dirt work, about a million yards, Augustine said. Gilchrist began the project in January 2005 and will finish what was originally designed as a concrete roadway over a layer of crushed stone and raw dirt.

"We submitted a section change that actually gave them a better road," said Augustine of the concrete, stone and soft cement alternative that will be delivered by October. "The soft cement is the bottom coat and is a stronger base," he said. "We actually take cement and cut it into the ground. We mix it and blend it in the dirt and it hardens on the ground. It gave the department a savings in time and money."

The project will require 90,000 sq. meters of cement, 120,000 sq. meters of concrete and 136,000 sq. meters of soft cement.

"The biggest challenge is for our cement suppliers to keep up with our pace of work," Augustine said. "We are going to be paving at such a fast pace, we will have to do some creative scheduling. Our concrete will catch up to our dirt work pretty soon."

The job was originally scheduled for completion January 2007, but Gilchrist plans to bring it in early.

"I don't foresee any major problems on this," Augustine said. "It's going good."

Denton-James LLC of Baton Rouge is performing work on another section of US 171 from Hornbeck to Florien in Sabine Parish. The contractor wasn't available for comment on the $20.1 million project.

Steelscape Manufacturing. While manufacturing represents only 7.3% of Shreveport's non-agricultural workforce, following the nationwide trend of a gradual, overall decline, a number of large- and mid-size manufacturing facilities have decided to make their home in the Louisiana city.

Beal cited the recently opened GM manufacturing plant, a Libby glass plant and a new manufacturing facility for California-based Steelscape that is currently under construction as part of the expansion of the Port of Shreveport/Bossier.

The Steelscape building that kicked off in June 2005 was completed last month by Wieland Davco Corp. of Lansing, Mich. The 225,000-sq.-ft. manufacturing and warehouse facility is merely the first phase in a four-part $120 million contract that will facilitate the Richmond, Calif., company's Shreveport operations, said Ryan Roberts, project manager.

The contractor has already laid the foundation for the second phase of the operation, which is a metal-coating facility that galvanizes the huge coils of steel made by Steelscape.

Each ensuing phase will overlap the completion of the previous one and performs an independent operation. That means manufacturing began with the contractor's completion of the first phase.

The structures are pre-engineered metal buildings with metal skins on steel frames, Roberts said.

"The concrete foundations are placed on auger cast piles that are drilled into the ground and there are greater concentrations of pilings where equipment will be placed," he said. "There are about 400 total for the 800-ft.-long production line in Phase I. The auger cast piles had to be ordered from a specialty contractor out of Kansas City, Kan."

Hurricane Rita brought a lot of rain that hindered progress at the beginning of the schedule, and Roberts said both Rita and Katrina caused some problems with availability of construction materials such as conduit, pipe, petroleum-based products and wire.

"Either we couldn't get it or the prices were going up," he said. All in all, the biggest challenge was maintaining a seven-day work schedule to keep pace with constructing a 225,000-sq.-ft. building in a year, Roberts said.

Northwest Louisiana War Veterans Home. Since the Shreveport/Bossier City area is the residential and commercial hub of the northwest part of the state, a lot of government buildings are constructed here.

By this fall, Walton Construction Company's Shreveport division will finish construction of the $16.1 million Northwest Louisiana War Veterans Home in Bossier City.

"Our contract is for October, but we plan to finish in September," said Tommy Clark, director of business development.

Located on the banks of the Red River off of the Arthur Ray Teague Parkway, the assisted living home for aged and/or invalid veterans in need will be a single-story, 140-bed facility on a 16.8-acre site that also includes a 1.5-acre fishing pond with gazebo.