Infrastructure Projects Represent A Never-ending Market

Feature Image Above: Recent Baldwin & Shell projects include new student housing at A-State, a new fire station in Rogers and ER expansion at Saline Memorial. (Photos provided by sources)

Baldwin & Shell Construction Co.’s current flagship project, the new Little Rock West High School, is scheduled for a March 2027 completion with students set to begin classes that fall.

The $147 million, state-of-the-art school will house 1,200 of them, and it represents the latest education project for the long-established, Little Rock-based construction firm. The company is also busy completing a $25 million expansion at Little Rock’s Robinson High, a $24 million expansion of Bryant High, a new $22 million building for Brinkley High and a $15 million new elementary school in Helena.

For Bobby Gosser, Baldwin & Shell’s president and CEO, large education projects such as these represent the heart of infrastructure and greatly impact local communities.

Bobby Gosser at Baldwin & Shell’s flagship project,
Little Rock West High.

“A school is really like a city unto itself,” he said. “Building a new school, you’ve got the master facilities planning, water, sewer, dining and playground facilities, which are like designing a park. You’ve got everything you’d find in a city.”

Other recent and ongoing infrastructure projects at the firm include Lyon College’s dental school in Little Rock, a $30 million project, and veterinary school in Cabot, a $57 million job, as well as a new $24 million junior high in Fayetteville. The firm, which has been helping build Arkansas infrastructure for 80 years, also built the new emergency room at Saline Memorial Hospital in Benton and Station No. 4 for the Rogers Fire Department.

For many contractors, builders and suppliers, schools and other municipal projects represent booming market segments.

“Many municipalities we work for are planning big projects,” Gosser said. “Our medical customers are planning big projects too. Medical is the next big push. The K-12 market is still good in Arkansas, and I don’t see an end in sight.”

Gosser, in his 34th year with the firm, said he hopes his industry can continue to keep up with the demand. As has been the case over the past decade in manufacturing, the construction field is seeing older workers age out with no one coming up to replace them.

“The biggest challenge for all construction companies is the burning out of employees,” he said. “We’re overworking the workforce we’ve got.”

Gosser said he believes modern-day culture “lost sight of the value of a trade,” though initiatives both public and private are working to promote skilled labor jobs and get high school graduates into high-paying jobs right away.

The infrastructure projects are not going anywhere, and until mankind can 3-D print a school or fire station, they still require people to do the work.

Lingering issues related to supply-chain procurement are also having an impact, Gosser added.

“Any time you have large projects, you can expect to go more than 12 months now,” he said. “We’re seeing it more and more — projects that used to take 12 months now take 16 to 18 months.”

Regardless of the construction timeframe, schools and other facilities associated with infrastructure operation still need to be built or renovated. Education, of course, is an essential component to the functionality of any municipality, and schools are the conduit through which it is delivered. Infrastructure, however, extends far beyond education to the things most take for granted on a daily basis — like water.

CAW has begun a $230 million renovation at the
Jack H. Wilson Water Treatment Plant in west Little Rock.

Central Arkansas Water is renovating the state’s largest water treatment plant and has another major project planned in the next five years. A $230 million renovation is underway at the Jack H. Wilson Water Treatment Plant in west Little Rock. The facility will remain open during the renovation, which will “completely overhaul the plant, allowing it to produce more drinking water on a daily basis while improving efficiency,” said Douglas Shackelford, public affairs officer at CAW.

Central Arkansas Water is renovating
the state’s largest water treatment plant.

The renovation will be completed in phases over the next five years.

“The plant was built in the 1950s and was really starting to show its age,” Shackelford said. “We just hit a milestone with this project by reopening one of the four treatment basins at the plant. That basin was out of service for the past year but is now back in operation and can produce more drinking water on a daily basis than ever before.”

CAW within the last decade completed a $32 million renovation of its Ozark Point Water Treatment Plant in midtown Little Rock. Once work is complete at Jack Wilson, the utility’s daily treatment capacity will increase to 157 million gallons.

Douglas Shackelford

On the horizon for CAW, which serves roughly 450,000 customers within 360 square miles of the Little Rock metro, is the construction of a 72-inch diameter raw water line from Lake Maumelle to the Wilson plant.

“Currently, there is a 72-inch line and a 48-inch line sending water from the lake to the plant,” Shackelford said. “These pipelines are still in daily use. CAW evaluates our infrastructure constantly and, in looking at the age of the current pipes plus the potential for growth in our region, determined that the system would be more secure with an additional pipeline instead of just replacing one of the current pipelines. This provides a level of redundancy and security for our system, as these are our most critical infrastructure pieces. Without them, we cannot move water from the lake to the plant, which means we cannot produce drinking water.”

The third line will ensure that CAW has access to its largest water source, he added, even if one of the pipelines is out of service for repairs or “something catastrophic happens.”

CAW is also renovating its James T. Harvey Administration Building in downtown Little Rock. Built during the 1960s, the building was also showing its age, Shackelford said. Work there is expected to be complete in 2027. In the meantime, CAW opened temporary headquarters at the Simmons Tower just down Capitol Avenue.

CAW manages almost 3,000 miles of pipeline, 22 booster pumping stations, 23 remote storage facilities, multiple elevated storage tanks and pump stations, the Wilson and Ozark Point treatment plants, and five duty stations where employees work. It also owns two source-water reservoirs — lakes Maumelle and Winona — as well as an auxiliary impoundment, Jackson Reservoir, which is just off bustling Cantrell Road and known to locals simply as “the reservoir.”

For public utilities, no news usually translates to good news. People generally do not think about a utility until there is an outage, a shortage or a problem with a bill. To ensure that customers can continue to enjoy the luxury of not thinking about it means CAW must be in constant planning and adaptation mode.

That means more big things coming down the pipeline at CAW.

“The next five years will show continued investment into the system, major upgrades to CAW facilities and infrastructure and continued growth as a regional water system,” Shackelford said. “It is a large responsibility to manage a system of this size, but we take the responsibility seriously, and it is managed to the point where CAW is nationally recognized as an award-winning leader among water utilities. Our drinking water has been recognized as the top five in the country for many years, but there is always work to be done to maintain that level of success and investment to ensure it remains the best for generations to come.”

Infrastructure projects not only enable society to function as needed; they provide a lifeline for many businesses. American Concrete Concepts, based in Conway with offices in Dallas, Denver and Knoxville, Tenn., supplies custom-polished concrete floors for a wide array of commercial uses, including schools, hotels, corporate offices, municipal buildings, grocery stores, retail outlets and manufacturing plants.

ACCI’s portfolio includes the University of Central Arkansas in Conway, Arkansas State University in Jonesboro, Mena schools, Amazon and defense contractors in Camden.

Owner Brent Schmiegelow said as long as society needs schools, offices and government buildings, his company will have a customer base. Business is rolling, and he does not expect things to slow down.

Brent Schmiegelow’s ACCI provides polished concrete
floors for Arkansas factories, schools and more.

“The state of the economy is strong, and business is very good,” he said. “Next year is looking even better.”

Polished concrete is durable, versatile, cost-effective, aesthetically appealing and environmentally friendly, Schmiegelow added.

Schools and offices will always require clean floors, and “we make floors shiny,” he said.

Infrastructure work demands attention to detail, forward thinking and the ability to stay ahead of the game. After all, the pipelines, wiring and “guts” that make societal necessities such as schools, hospitals and fire stations function are only new once. For utilities such as CAW, replacing old pipes and investing in upgrades are a constant responsibility.

Shackelford said the team at CAW is always looking for what is changing in the industry so it can stay ahead of any potential issues.

“Regulatory changes are always something we have to monitor, whether it’s changes to the Lead and Copper Rule or the Safe Drinking Water Act or local changes in how our utility must operate,” he said. “We work closely with our elected officials, with organizations like the American Water Works Association, the Arkansas Department of Health, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and others to make sure that we not only meet all requirements but that we exceed them if possible. We also continually monitor our lakes to ensure that they remain healthy and have done a good job over the past few years in making our reservoirs healthier through best management practices and protections.”