Project hits milestone of 175,000 man hours without recordable safety incident
McCarthy Building Companies, Inc. celebrated an important milestone on Wednesday - the topping out of what will be Houston’s new Kinder High School for the Performing and Visual Arts. The construction company broke ground on the new home of the prestigious school in February 2016, and it is expected to be completed during the fourth quarter of 2018.
To celebrate the occasion, more than 300 people gathered on the fourth level of the new building structure to watch crews hoist an evergreen tree atop the structure, which signifies the highest point of the building has been reached.Those gathered included members of McCarthy’s construction team, subcontractors and craft workers; representatives from Gensler, the project architect; HSPVA faculty; and representatives from HISD, the HISD Board of Education and HSPVA Friends. Attendees were treated to lunch and performances by HSPVA’s Mariachi Department and a vocal ensemble from the school.
“We are thrilled to be celebrating the topping out of the new Kinder High School for the Performing and Visual Arts. The journey in working with McCarthy and the project team to this point has been great and a learning experience like no other,” said HSPVA Principal R. Scott Allen. “The HSPVA faculty and students are extremely excited to see this building of steel and concrete morph into a beautiful and state-of-the-art arts magnet school that we get to enjoy for decades to come.”
Located downtown in close proximity to Houston’s renowned Theatre District, Kinder High School for the Performing and Visual Arts is designed to accommodate 750 students specializing in the arts disciplines, including theatre, writing, music, visual arts and dance. The five-story 168,000-square-foot building will feature a dramatic front entrance with double-high glass windows and a wide stairwell, 800-seat main theater with a balcony, dance and music studios, 175-seat recital hall, 200-seat mini-theatre, 300-seat black box theater, rehearsal rooms, modern outdoor dining area, two levels of underground parking and an outdoor roof terrace.
“McCarthy has a long-standing history of building complex, architecturally significant projects in the performing and visual arts industry, and we are very pleased to be a part of this landmark project for HISD,” said McCarthy Houston Division President Jim Stevenson. “We are excited that the education of generations of young artists will be shaped by this building and the work so many skilled and talented people put into it.”
McCarthy is also celebrating a project safety milestone. Construction crews have clocked 175,000 hours on the jobsite without a recordable safety incident.
About McCarthy
McCarthy Building Companies, Inc. is the oldest privately held national construction company in the country – with more than 150 years spent collaborating with partners to solve complex building challenges on behalf of its clients. With an unrelenting focus on safety and a comprehensive quality program that span all phases of every project, McCarthy utilizes industry-leading design phase and construction techniques combined with value-add technology to maximize outcomes. Repeatedly honored as a Best Place to Work and Healthiest Employer, McCarthy is ranked the 16th largest domestic general contractor (Engineering News-Record, May 2016). With approximately 1,700 salaried employees and offices in Dallas, Houston; St. Louis, Atlanta; Collinsville, Ill.; Portage, Ind.; Kansas City, Kan.; Phoenix; Las Vegas; Denver; Albuquerque; and San Diego, Newport Beach, San Francisco, San Jose and Sacramento, Calif. McCarthy is 100 percent employee owned. More information about the company is available online at Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and Google+.
