HBCC News Feed

Recently Awarded Jobs

Thu, 10 Jun 2010 00:00:00 -0700

MONROE COUNTY, ARKANSAS
Hill Brothers was recently awarded an AHTD contract southwest of Clarendon in Monroe County, Arkansas for the construction of 2.2 miles of Highway 79 at a new location. The project will consist of two bridges requiring approximately 4,000 linear feet of bridge construction and more that 1.5 million cubic yards of earthwork..

LEE COUNTY, MISSISSIPPI
Hill Brothers was awarded the MDOT project to relocate SR 6 from the Natchez Trace Parkway to SR 145, known as Federal Aid Project No. APD-0070-06(008) N/100078304 in Lee County, MS. Robert Goolsby will be the project superintendent on this $27 Million project.

BOGALUSA, LA
Hill Brothers was awarded an Airfield Expansion project at the George R. Carr Memorial Airfield in Bogalusa, LA. The project consists of approximately 23,000 linear feet of precast concrete piles and approximately 4,500 linear feet of pile cap.

NEW ORLEANS, LA
On August 27th, Hill Brothers was awarded a Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control project known as Dwyer Road Intake Canal. The project, awarded by the New Orleans District Corps of Engineers, will consist of excavation, driving sheet piling, driving timber piling, driving steel pipe piling, utility relocations, concrete box culvert construction, asphalt road work, fertilizing and seed, backfilling and other incidental work.
This project is scheduled to begin on October 27, 2008 and has a scheduled completion date of October 5, 2012.

MDOT completes bridge on U.S. 90

Daily Journal of Commerce — Thu, 28 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

PEARLINGTON, Miss. — The Mississippi Department Transportation has completed a project to replace the bridges across Cowan and Whites bayous along U.S. Highway 90 in Hancock County.

Hill Brothers Construction Co. Inc. of Falkner, Miss., was awarded the $8.3 million project last year.

The bridge is scheduled to open to traffic this week, one week ahead of schedule, said MDOT Project Engineer Gabe Faggard.

Toyota Site, Highway 6 roadwork set to start

Brenda Owen - Pontotoc Progress — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 00:00:00 -0700

Construction on access roads connected to the Toyota site at Blue Springs as well as renewed activity on Highway 6 East of Pontotoc are now set to start, according to Mississippi Department of Transportation officials.

When bids were let last week, Hill Brothers Construction Co. of Falkner was the low bidder on both jobs. The company bid $11,708,440.60 on grading, drainage and bridges for an approximate 6-mile stretch of Highway 6. The project will construct the foundation of the next-to-last four-lane section of the east-west thoroughfare.
The four-lane project ends now at State Highway 342 and will be extended eastward almost to the Natchez Trace. The work is expected to take about 18 months.
At $29,965,980.02, Hill Brothers also submitted the low bid on roadwork to facilitate traffic around the Toyota assembly plant at Blue Springs.
The project will include building a five-lane frontage road on the south side of U.S. Highway 78 between Blue Springs and Sherman, with modifications to both interchanges.

Hill Brothers Nears Completion of the Stack’s Phase Three

M.R. Gorringe - MS Business Journal — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 00:00:00 -0700

Completing the third phase of the STACK has been “a really good project” for Hill Brothers Construction of Falkner, which plans to maintain an office in metro Jackson when the work is completed.

Paul Leonards, a vice president and area manager for Hill Brothers, says the various parties worked well together on the project. He managed the project when it began. After his promotion, Doug Horton began managing the project.

When the work began in early 2003, Leonards lived in North Mississippi. “I live here now. My goal is to stay here,” says Leonards, who has been with the company almost 13 years.

He says the company is doing other work in the area that he is managing.

In addition to Mississippi, Hill performs work in Texas, Louisiana, Florida, Arkansas, Missouri, Kentucky, Alabama and Tennessee.

On track
The third phase of the STACK project is on track.

“Currently, the contractor is constructing additional lanes in the median of U.S. 49 South. Once complete, traffic will be placed on these lanes and the existing bridges over the KCS Railway will be removed and replaced with new bridges. It is anticipated that construction will be complete in the spring of 2008. It is assumed that some sort of road opening ceremony will take place once the project is completed,” says Carrie Adams, a spokeswoman for the Mississippi Department of Transportation (MDOT).

Adams says the above part of the project came about when Richland, Pearl and KCS Railroad approached MDOT about including the raising and lengthening of the U.S. 49 bridges over the railroad instead of only widening them as was initially planned.

“In order to address the different needs and concerns, Richland and Pearl, the KCS Railroad and MDOT executed the agreement that would allow for the bridge replacement and would raise the height and length over the railroad and Frontage Road. The new bridges will allow for future expansion of the railroad and its services to the area,” says Adams.

She notes it isn’t unusual for cities and a railroad to put money into a project like this one.

“MDOT executes agreements with other entities for funding portions of the projects that are of a special interest or need by these outside parties,” says Adams.

Up next?
She says four phases were planned in the original study for the STACK. “Phase IV of the study will be re-examined using today’s numbers to determine the feasibility of Phase IV. Once this is complete and when funding becomes available, we will look at letting STACK IV. It involves work to the west along I-20/55 back to Gallatin Street. It will add additional lanes to I-20/55 and rework the State Street and Gallatin Street Interchanges.

The combined total for Phase I and II was $55 million. STACK III is currently projected to cost $65 million and STACK IV is estimated at $40 million for a total of $160 million, says Adams.

MDOT executive director Larry L. “Butch” Brown says, “The STACK improvements are a definite asset to the people of Mississippi as well as a convenience for the traveling public. With approximately 129,000 vehicles traveling through the STACK area daily, this vital link, which connects I-55, I-20 and U.S. 49, will improve the flow of traffic and the improvements will allow for a safer transportation network, which is MDOT’s mission”

Hill Brothers provided a roving service patrol at the beginning of the project to assist the public in case of a flat tire or any type of car problem occurring in the project area. The service also towed abandoned vehicles off the highway to keep the median safe. At this stage of the project, the patrol is now being used on U.S. 49.

Toyota Plant Site Cleared Weeks Ahead of Schedule

Maybelle G. Cagle — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 00:00:00 -0700

The first of many construction projects involving the $1.3 billion Toyota automotive plant near Tupelo has been completed weeks early. Hill Brothers Construction Co. of Faulkner, Miss., recently finished the first contract, clearing the core site in Blue Springs. Located about 10 mi. west of Tupelo off U.S. 78, the plant, scheduled to open in 2010, will produce the company’s Highlander SUV model.

Hill Brothers was awarded the contract in March to clear nearly 300 acres (121 ha) of the Wellspring Project site. Workers completed clearing and grubbing work on March 28 — 16 days after starting the project. Hill had 45 days to complete the work. Crews have worked 12 hours a day, seven days a week, for the past month to complete the project. Hill had approximately 40 workers at the site, while subcontractors added another 48 personnel. The company had the low bid of $825,740 for the contract. The bid was less than half that of the next lowest. Eutaw Construction of Aberdeen, Miss., which cleared the sites for Nissan in Canton, Miss., and SeverCorr in Columbus, Miss., bid $1.6 million. There were a total of six bidders.

“We’re pleased that Hill Brothers got the contract and we were delighted that we had two local companies that showed they could do the job,” said Charles Duke, chairman of the PUL, the state’s first regional economic development alliance. It is an acronym of the three counties involved in the alliance — Pontotoc, Union and Lee.
Flattening the land to prepare for the construction of the plant is the next step. Toyota, which takes possession of the site May 1, will choose the contractor for that project.
“They could let Hill Brothers do the whole project [site work],” said Randy Kelley, executive director of Three Rivers Planning and Development District, which is helping the PUL Alliance develop the site.
Hill Brothers credits good weather with helping to get the project done ahead of schedule.
“The only unusual thing on this project has been the weather and it wasn’t a challenge,” said Becky Coombs, Hill’s spokeswoman. “Since we began working on March 12, we have had only one half inch of rainfall. This has been the greatest contributing factor to us completing the project ahead of time.”
She said there has been a lot of excitement at the job site.
“For Hill Brothers, this is probably one of the highest profile projects we have performed, and it will definitely add another notable player to our company’s resume,” Coombs said.

The company wasted no time getting the job done, because as Coombs said, “When looking at potential liquidated damages of $25,000 per day [if the job wasn’t completed in time], you don’t even want to think about delays and going over the schedule. We knew what we had to do, so we put the people and equipment on the job to get it done.”
Hill’s contract was for 335 acres (135 ha), 57 of those acres (23 ha) with minimal trees were designated as an area to be used as a mulching pit. The 278 acres (112 ha) remaining were the primary acreage to be cleared and grubbed.
The company used 21 pieces of heavy equipment for the clearing and grubbing. Some of the equipment was owned by the company and other equipment was rented from Power Equipment and Thompson Machinery.
Hill’s equipment at the job site included: Komatsu D65PX, Komatsu D65EX, two Komatsu PC300EXs, Komatsu PC220EX, Komatsu PC200 with a thumb, Komatsu PC200 with a stump shear, two Komatsu PC220s with a stump shear, one Komatsu PC220 with a thumb, Komatsu PC228 with a thumb, Komatsu PC300 with a stump shear, Cat 325CL excavator, Cat D6N dozer, Cat D6R dozer, Cat D6R LGP dozer, Cat 330 excavator with a thumb, Cat 140 G motorgrader, Cat 950G IT loader and Cat 930G wheel loader with a rake.
“We hired other local owner/operators with excavators and dozers to assist us in the clearing and grubbing operations. They supplied another 15 pieces of equipment that was comparable to what we used on the project,” Coombs said.
Hankins Forest Products handled the timber-cutting operations at the site. It hired four different logging companies to perform the timber cutting, each of which had five to seven pieces of equipment, including feller-bunchers, skidders, dozers and knuckleboom loaders.
This wasn’t the first time Hill Brothers did a lot of work on a tight deadline in Mississippi. Its crews hauled 2.8 million cu. yds. (2.1 million cu m) of borrow dirt within 80 days in 2001 for the new Nissan plant in Canton, Miss.
“The site was brought to grade for the construction of the building pads and the various parking areas and roads. The work under this contract was successfully completed even though more than 18 inches of rain fell during this time frame,” Coombs said.

Other subcontractors on the Toyota project included: Environmental Grinding Services and Triangle Maintenance, which performed much of the grinding and mulching operations.
Hill used Colom Construction Co. for the removal of structures. ILM Inc. performed erosion control items and Riverside Traffic Systems provided construction signs and barricades for the project.
Hill hopes to be awarded additional projects from Toyota.
“As a heavy civil contractor with our home office located only 45 minutes from the site, we hope to remain on-site and perform the mass grading for this large project. On the current project, Hill Brothers has worked diligently to provide a safe project site and successful completion. Everyone has been pleased with the progress of the project and we are thankful the weather cooperated beautifully over the past weeks,” Coombs said.
No cleared material was burned, said Coombs.
“Toyota takes an environmentally friendly approach to all their construction and manufacturing operations. All of the wood debris had to be grinded and mulched. Grinding Services and Triangle Maintenance Service provided grinders for this project,” Coombs said.
Environmental Grinding Services used a Morbark tub grinder and Triangle Maintenance Service is using a Vermeer tub grinder and a horizontal grinder.

Toyota recently held a 90-minute presentation in Tupelo for more than 600 contractors. The presentation covered purchasing and supplier diversity and how to do construction business with the company.
Safety was repeatedly emphasized as a primary element in selecting who Toyota will do business with in Mississippi.
“If you think we are fanatical [about safety], that’s good because we are,” said Gene Tabor, general manager of purchasing for Toyota Motor Engineering and Manufacturing North America.
Along with a company’s safety record, Toyota will be looking for supplier diversity. For the total Toyota Mississippi construction expenditures, 15 percent of the general contractor’s Tier 1 contracts must go to minority businesses.
Toyota is requesting bids now and will start awarding contracts in mid-May, according to Tabor.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. CEG