Granite Lands $23M in Contracts as Hensel Phelps Raises Tampa Terminal Walls

Granite Construction booked $27 million in new work this week — a $16 million road project in Washington and an $11 million aircraft arresting system for a Florida air base — while Hensel Phelps started hanging precast panels at Tampa International Airport's Airside D.

The Watsonville, California-based contractor will widen State Route 202 in Woodinville, Washington, from five lanes to eight and replace a railroad trestle with a post-tensioned box girder pedestrian bridge, according to a Wednesday news release. Construction has already begun. Completion is slated for late 2027.

The second win is more cinematic. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers awarded Granite an $11 million contract, announced Oct. 22, to build a BAK-12/14 aircraft arresting system at Homestead Air Reserve Base in Homestead, Florida. Think hook-and-cable — the rig Maverick snags in the "Top Gun" movies — giving incoming aircraft a critical emergency stopping mechanism. Granite expects to finish by the fourth quarter of 2027.

What else did contractors win this week?

• Bechtel put $1 million into Wyoming's skilled trades. The Reston, Virginia-based builder will split the investment between Laramie County Community College and Western Wyoming College to fund curriculum, instructors, equipment and training facilities, and to create new electrical and pipefitting career pathways. The money also prepares graduates for apprenticeships and introduces them to local builders. Bechtel launched Build for More alongside the investment — a statewide campaign using digital storytelling and community engagement to pitch the trades to students, parents and teachers who may never have considered them.
• The Navy bought autonomous construction equipment. Neya Systems, an off-road autonomy software provider, won a $3.3 million contract to deliver an autonomous construction equipment kit to the Naval Construction Force, the company announced Tuesday. The kit will let the NCF repair airfields and ports and construct naval bases where personnel would face hazards. The system deploys onto the NCF's existing vehicle fleets — skid steer loaders, forklifts, bulldozers and front-end loaders — and scales to more. It offers teleoperation through semi- and fully autonomous behaviors, and operates in GPS-denied, degraded, intermittent and limited environments.

Who moved firms?

San Francisco-based Skyline Construction hired Silicon Valley veteran Steve Dunne as senior project executive, according to a Monday release. Dunne spent more than 20 years at Sunnyvale-based SC Builders, per his LinkedIn, and led projects and campus developments for Google and Qualcomm across nearly four decades in the industry. At Skyline, he'll support operations and project teams throughout Northern California and anchor the firm's technology, life science and workplace business.

What's happening at Tampa's airport?

Hensel Phelps' crews have begun placing precast concrete panels on the exterior of Tampa International Airport's Airside D terminal, the airport announced Tuesday. The panels were cast off site and trucked to TPA.

Workers will place 83 pieces along the outline of Airside D, fasten them into place and tie them to the structural steel — effectively assembling the building's skeleton, per the announcement. The panels resemble those forming Airside D's elevator shafts, but carry a rough exterior finish meant to highlight the stone and sand of the walls.

All told, the week's quieter headlines spanned a Navy kit that drives bulldozers without drivers and a $1 million bet that Wyoming students will choose pipefitting. Both, notably, target the same shortage from opposite ends.