Nabholz, McClinton-Anchor top largest contractors list

It’s a neck-and-neck race for first place between the two largest commercial contractors in Northwest Arkansas.

Nabholz Construction Corp. tops the Northwest Arkansas Business Journal’s list again with $48.8 million in revenues for 1998.

But APAC-Arkansas/McClinton-Anchor Division, is close behind with $48.6 million in revenues for the year.

The two specialize in different kinds of construction, however. Nabholz, a general contractor, usually does buildings, and its area projects include the new Bentonville High School and an addition to NorthWest Community College.

McClinton-Anchor is a prominent builder of highways and other infrastructures, including airport roadways, taxiways and runways.

The largest commercial construction projects begun in the region in 1998 were, perhaps not surprisingly, primarily those funded with taxpayer dollars.

But there were a couple of private retail and office developments, too: an addition to Village on the Creeks shopping center and the new Van Dyke Center, both in Rogers.

Ozark Aircraft Systems got a new hangar — an 83,000-SF building that cost about $5 million to build. It’s at the Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport in Highfill.

Also, Fellowship Bible Church in Lowell began a $3.6 million, 42,000-SF addition that was large enough to make the list.

Other than those projects, however, the rest of the largest construction jobs begun in 1998 were public projects.

The University of Arkansas has several projects under way, three of which made the list this year: The student union renovation and addition, which may cost $16 million before it’s complete; an $8 million parking facility; and a long-planned expansion and renovation to the alumni center, a project that’s expected to cost $3.4 million.

Two of the biggest projects in the state that were in progress when the list was compiled last year were finished late in 1998.

The $107 million Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport near Highfill opened in November. Four of the five commercial airlines that served Fayetteville’s Drake Field have decided to move to the new airport.

Interstate 540, the new, four-lane highway between Alma and Fayetteville, was finished at the end of the year and opened Jan. 8. At $459 million — more than $10 million per mile — this is the most expensive rural highway project in Arkansas history.