Balfour Beatty’s roots in Texas run deep, even stretching back to the end of the previous century. While our Texas teams have grown and adapted to market changes over the years, it’s still notably uncommon that a client relationship spans nearly the full length of our operations.

The reason for this longevity is simple: absolutely unparalleled service, delivering consistent results time and time again. Our teams earn trust quickly and work tirelessly to maintain it.

Since 1996, Balfour Beatty has served Texas Health Resources (THR) on hundreds of projects on the Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital campus in Fort Worth, Texas. Throughout projects encompassing every aspect of healthcare construction – from cafes to towers to maternity wings – Balfour Beatty’s partnership with THR has, quite literally, never stopped. Over the years, our teams have repeatedly proven our commitment to THR’s patient-first mentality, our mastery of the unique challenges of healthcare construction and our unwavering standard of operational excellence.

Patient Protections

Did you know that construction vibrations can actually induce an expectant mother into an early – potentially very dangerous – labor? Our Zero Harm leaders possess this specialized knowledge and so much more to deliver industry-leading healthcare construction.

Healthcare construction is a wholly unique field of general contracting, subject to myriad safety and logistical considerations that other teams must rarely consider. A large hospital campus is occupied at all times, and any construction disruptions – dust, noise, physical movement and more – pose a more serious risk than just inconvenience. Our teams at Harris Methodist have a proven, three-decade record of tackling these critical considerations early and comprehensively devising the logistical solutions that ensure success. Our formula for success begins with selecting the right trade partners for the job.

One early project with THR saw our team constructing a new dining facility, the Cramer Café, which also included a basement. While the planning and design process involved many typical considerations for a basement in North Texas (in short, the area’s expansive black clay soil can pose difficulties) the team’s coordination with THR revealed another critical mission parameter: the new basement connected to the existing basements of buildings either side, one of which housed a maternity wing.

“Protecting those expectant mothers was one of THR’s top priorities, so of course it became ours too,” says Steve Dillon, then a senior project manager and now senior vice president and Texas Buildings business unit leader. “Through early mission alignment, careful coordination and constant communication, we could present options to mitigate vibrations in the first place and ensure our construction activities could occur during downtimes.”

The same principles of coordination, communication and healthcare industry expertise applied just as much when renovating a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) area of the hospital. Patients in a NICU simply cannot be turned away, easily relocated or ignored, so THR’s responsibility for patient protection again became our shared mission.

“In situations like the NICU renovations, we deploy every possible solution to ensure safety for the hospital’s patients, and protecting premature or otherwise at-risk infants weighs more heavily than most,” Steve adds. “With the help of our trade partners, we leveraged temporary walls, strict clean area policies and negative air machines, creating a stark contrast between our designated construction zone and an otherwise unaffected NICU.”

To that point, cultivating the right trade partner resources over time is another critical element to our successful and enduring relationship with THR. Just as our teams must be experts in healthcare construction, so too must our trade partners’ teams.

When selecting trade partners for a new THR project, especially those in close proximity to critical health services, our team purposefully evaluates more than just the bottom line.

“In healthcare work, simply pursuing the ‘lowest number’ can be a betrayal of our commitment to quality,” Steve adds. “Instead, we focus on relationships, a shared ethic of excellence and records of success, then we strive to deliver value for our client on other fronts like value engineering, procurement and schedule acceleration.”

Towering Accomplishments

Senior Project Manager Darron Black has his own record of success serving THR on behalf of Balfour Beatty – a nearly 20-year record, in fact – covering every aspect of hospital construction. Every project has been unique in its own way, but few stand out in his memory as much as the recent Jane and John Justin Patient Surgical Tower. 11 stories and 370,000 square feet, the $200 million tower is THR’s largest project to date and greatly expanded the hospital’s capacity to serve patients.

“Justin Tower is easily the most ambitious project we’ve ever partnered with THR on and one of our greatest successes,” Darron says. “With its size, emphasis on patient and family comfort and its adaptability to future changes, the tower really has more in common with Class-A office high-rises than your typical healthcare project. Together with HKS Architects, we delivered a world-class facility to serve patients for decades to come.”

The role of HKS Architects’ design partnership also can’t be ignored, as Balfour Beatty has worked with the design firm on nearly every THR project for the last 22 years. Balfour Beatty and HKS have grown together as THR’s allies and co-experts in their aesthetic preferences, necessary design elements and the unique requirements of healthcare spaces. The partnership’s results – self-perpetuating with new projects nearly every year – speak volumes to the amount of hard-won trust that THR stakeholders place in our expertise.

Beyond spawning repeated new opportunities on the Harris Methodist campus, Balfour Beatty’s record of excellence as THR’s most staunch Relentless Allies has led to projects on five other Texas Health Resources campuses across North and Texas.

“Our relationship with THR is built on the right people, from project leadership all the way to trade workers, who share a common commitment to build the best healthcare facilities possible,” Darron adds. “THR trusts us to do just that every time, and they honor our teams by reaffirming that trust with every new opportunity.”

National Clients, Local Commitment

While Balfour Beatty builds decades of trust with regional Texas clients like THR, the same principles undergird every Balfour Beatty project team from coast-to-coast. By sharing a client-first mindset, our teams are also best equipped to share their technical expertise across state and market sector lines, often to the benefit of national clients looking to expand or enhance their developments into our key operational areas.

Wherever clients interact with Balfour Beatty teams, they experience firsthand our unwavering advocacy for our clients’ interests and commitment to realizing their values and goals. Some clients look to national horizons and others to local transformation, but Balfour Beatty serves as a Relentless Ally to all.