A jump in work reported by the local office of Clark Construction Group LLC helped Orange County’s largest commercial construction companies post their strongest year for revenue since 2008.
The largest 25 commercial construction companies on this year’s Business Journal list saw a collective 13.3% increase in revenue during the past year, to $5.6 billion. Much of the work came from tourism and health care projects as companies in those industries continued to spend more money on expansions and upgrades in the thawing economy.
It’s the third year in a row that the list has shown year-over-year increases, although the prior two years saw boosts of only about 1%.
In the two years before that, companies posted drops of about 13% and 7%, respectively, as they struggled through the downturn.
You can thank the Costa Mesa office of Bethesda, Md.-based Clark Construction for much of this year’s boost to the list’s bottom line.
The company took over the No. 1 spot on the list after reporting $1.2 billion in work over the past year, a 63% year-over-year increase.
It was one of 14 companies on the list to post year-over-year gains in revenues in their local offices and one of only two companies—along with No. 12 Largo Concrete Inc. of Tustin—to post a year-over-year gain in excess of 50%.
Seven companies saw declines in work last year. Four companies’ figures are Business Journal estimates.
The list, even without Clark’s breakout year, would show a cumulative increase of about 4.2% from a year ago, a smaller—though still significant—pickup in work.
Larger area projects Clark worked on included Walt Disney Co.’s $1.1 billion expansion of its Disney’s California Adventure theme park in Anaheim that included the new Cars Land theme section.
That project, which wrapped up last year and involved several construction companies, was one of the largest ongoing construction projects in OC over the past few years.
Clark also is building a hospital just south of San Clemente at Camp Pendleton. That estimated $450 million project, which is being done in partnership with St. Louis-based McCarthy Building Cos., is expected to open next year.
The Business Journal ranks companies by annual revenue that OC offices generate, whether the projects are in OC or elsewhere.
The Newport Beach office of McCarthy took the No. 2 spot on this week’s list after posting revenue of $984 million last year. That’s up 6% from a year ago.
Healthcare work made up much of McCarthy’s larger projects in the region. Its other area projects included a 425,524-square-foot patient tower at CHOC Children’s Hospital in Orange.
The seven-story patient-care tower opened in March. It includes the 22,000-square-foot Julia and George Argyros Emergency Department, OC’s only pediatric emergency department.
Limited Mega-Projects
With projects like the California Adventure improvements and other long-term projects like the $550 million John Wayne Airport expansion now in the rear-view mirror, there are not too many local mega-projects known to be on the horizon.
That isn’t necessarily reflected in the backlog that companies on this week’s list have. The 25 companies said they were awarded a cumulative $4.6 billion in new contracts over the past year, a 3% uptick from a year ago.
Eighteen companies said their backlogs are bigger now than they were a year ago, but they include only two of the top six companies, Clark and the Lake Forest office of Arb Inc., which is No. 5 on this week’s list.
Clark’s most prominent new area project is the Anaheim Regional Transportation Intermodal Center, or Artic, which is being built on 16 acres near the Orange (57) Freeway and Katella Avenue close to Angel Stadium and the Honda Center.
The city of Anaheim awarded Clark a $127 million contract last year for construction of the transportation hub. The project will create an estimated 5,000 jobs, according to city documents.
Revenues aren’t the only thing increasing in the improving economy. Companies on this week’s list reported having 3,694 employees in their local offices, a 4% uptick from a year ago.
But commercial construction-related employment for the area’s larger companies appears to be growing slower than construction jobs as a whole.
State figures show that total construction employment in OC, including residential-focused positions, totaled about 73,000 jobs as of April, a 7.2% increase from year-ago levels.
