Engineering News-Record Ranks Utah Construction Companies

Engineering News-Record (ENR) publishes annually its list of the Top 400 Contractors in the United States. The rankings are recognized within the commercial construction industry as the standard by which construction companies are rated.

The 2012 Top 400 list, released on May 14, 2012, includes six Utah-based commercial contractors, led by Layton Construction, as the 85th largest commercial contractor in the country and the largest in Utah. The list also includes Okland Construction (#90), Big-D (#99), Jacobsen Construction (#145), R&O Construction (#194), and Clyde Companies (#197). The rankings are based upon 2011 construction revenues reported by the companies to ENR.

In last year’s ENR Top 400 report dated May 16, 2011, ENR senior editor Gary J. Tulacz reported, “The recession continues to plague large contractors in the U.S. ENR’s Top 400 Contractors list illustrates the downturn’s depth and breadth…About two-thirds of this year’s Top 400 showed a falloff in revenue in 2010 from 2009… Domestic revenue for the Top 400 fell 11.5 percent in 2010… Even more dramatic is the Top 400’s 23.3 percent revenue falloff in 2010 from 2008’s record high… While most major firms think the market has hit bottom, few see an immediate recovery.”

Tulacz’ observations this year are more optimistic than last year’s findings. Tulacz reports, “The slow turnaround in the construction market can be seen in this year’s ENR Top 400 Contractors list. As a group, the Top 400 generated…an increase of 8.8 percent  from 2010’s [revenues].”

Mirroring the market conditions nationwide, Utah’s commercial construction companies report mixed results individually, but in the aggregate, show an increase in revenues of 10.3 percent over revenues reported in 2010. The cumulative revenues of the top four Utah contractors on ENR’s Top 400 list rose from $1.92 billion in 2010 to $2.12 billion in 2011. It should be noted that portions of revenues of a number of these Utah companies are generated outside the state of Utah, as Utah’s construction companies continue to reach into regional and national markets. Significant local projects such as City Creek Center, and the James L. Sorenson Molecular Biotechnology Building on the University of Utah campus have been completed. However, other government-driven projects like the NSA Data Center and Federal Courthouse continue to breathe life into the local commercial construction industry which has endured a difficult four years of declines since the start of the great recession. It appears the worst may be over.

(5.16.12)