White Construction hits stride

Austin Business Journal - October 13, 2006

by A.J. Mistretta

ABJ Staff

Neel White, CEO of White Construction Co., is busier than ever since his fi rm decided to diversify after the tech bust several years ago.

Neel White is used to thinking big-picture. Through the years, his firm, White Construction Co., has built some of the highest-profile developments in Austin while branching out with clients into other states. Now, the company is set to take on two federal construction projects worth $140 million.

Earlier this month, the U.S. General Services Administration awarded White Construction the contract for the new $60 million federal courthouse planned for downtown Austin. Construction could begin as soon as March 2008.

The GSA also awarded the Austin and Ridgeland, Miss.-based company the $80 million design/build contract for another federal courthouse in Las Cruces, N.M. Construction on that project is slated to begin in April 2007.

The seven-story, 212,000-square-foot Austin courthouse will be built on the block bounded by Fourth, Fifth, Nueces and San Antonio streets. An incomplete building intended to house Intel Corp.'s design center sits on the site, which the GSA purchased in 2004. Intel halted its project in 2001, citing concerns over the slumping economy. The building is slated to be demolished in December.

When it opens, the new courthouse will house the U.S. Magistrate Court and U.S. District Court, both currently in the historic courthouse at 200 W. Eighth St.

White Construction will work closely with the project's design team, led by Atlanta-based Mack Scogin Merrill Elam Architects Inc., on the building's final design to keep costs in check.

The two contracts are just the latest developments for a firm that has experienced significant growth in recent years. White Construction is currently working on projects in seven different states, including the 500,000-square-foot Dell Children's Medical Center here in Austin, a $120 million contract. The company reports producing annual revenue on the order of $300 million and has active contracts worth nearly $500 million.

But the outlook wasn't so rosy just four years ago. By 2002, White Construction -- which built Dell Inc.'s Parmer Lane facility, most of its Round Rock campus and National Instruments' corporate headquarters on MoPac Expressway -- had grown dependent on the technology sector, a fact that became all too evident when the bottom fell out of that industry the year before.

"When our volume dropped, we regrouped and developed a strategic plan," White says. Out of that plan, the company determined that, in addition to working with existing clients, it would focus on new work in health care, corrections and with the GSA.

That year, the company also launched a successful division centered on high-end residential development in Central and South Texas. That business segment, which now accounts for about 20 percent of White's revenue, helped diversify the company, allowing it to ride the ups and downs of commercial construction.