Beneath every student union, dormitory or research lab on higher education campuses sits a complex network of building systems and utilities that keep facilities powered, heated, cooled and running. While Balfour Beatty has earned a reputation as one of the leading builders in the Carolinas, it’s our unique ability to deliver what’s above ground—and below it—that defines and differentiates our services.

As Relentless Allies, our teams leverage the same attention to detail, tireless collaboration with project stakeholders and Zero Harm safety mindset to deliver best-in-class education facilities and the building systems that support them.

Dedicated to Detail

Universities rely on upgrades to their infrastructure to modernize, expand energy resiliency and support future campus growth. With growing data and supportive power demands, universities’ needs have only increased, requiring contractors like Balfour Beatty that understand every facet of their operations.

Over the past four years, Balfour Beatty has delivered vital projects that support and enhance the building's infrastructure for major North Carolina higher education institutions. Our work extends beyond site-prep packages, encompassing full-scale utility system overhauls with high voltage, major chilled water, domestic water, steam distribution and mission-critical resiliency components.

These projects require contractors like Balfour Beatty that can coordinate around occupied campuses and critical research facilities; communicate with students, faculty, facility personnel and utility providers; work safely in active environments without disrupting daily operations; and deliver technically advanced systems with long-term reliability.

Balfour Beatty’s success isn’t accidental—it comes from a deep understanding of how what’s underground supports everything above it.

“We understand the whole system—the part you see above ground and the part you don’t,” says Operations Director Colby Willis. “Whether we’re pulling cable through a duct bank or constructing the building above it, clients trust us because we know how one supports the other.”

A deep understanding of these complex layers of campus infrastructure doesn’t just inspire client confidence. Our team’s mastery of comprehensive building systems ensures that we can sequence work correctly, procure the correct materials with time and budget considerations and perform the work correctly the first time, reducing the likelihood of re-work that can be inconvenient to campus end-users and costly to the university.

Our diverse expertise and capabilities have made Balfour Beatty the go-to construction partner not only for campus utilities and energy resiliency projects, but also for the buildings that grow from them.

Complete Grid Transformation

At North Carolina State University (NCSU) in Raleigh, North Carolina, the team led a complete replacement of the campus’s electrical power grid—installing more than six miles of duct bank, 90 miles of medium-voltage cable and 53 medium-voltage switches to transition 110 buildings onto a new “self-healing” smart grid. A self-healing system isolates outages and automatically reroutes power, allowing service to be restored in seconds rather than hours.

In addition to the grid replacement, Balfour Beatty upgraded the campus’s primary substation and removed an existing, now-obsolete substation that was no longer needed once those 110 buildings were transferred to the new system. The scale and thoughtful design of the work improved worker safety, enhanced energy reliability, reduced outages and modernized a system that supports administrative, academic, research, athletic, dining and residential operations around the clock.

Hundreds of miles northeast, at Elizabeth City State University (ECSU) in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, Balfour Beatty is taking on an equally complex challenge: rebuilding and future-proofing the campus’s utility infrastructure from the ground up. Our work includes designing and implementing a new power grid, installing four two-megawatt generators capable of powering a small town (or up to 3,000 homes) together and laying nearly two miles of domestic water line and installing two separate regional booster stations that support the demands of the entire campus.

While the NC State project showcases the modernization of a legacy system at scale, ECSU illustrates Balfour Beatty’s ability to build resilient campus infrastructure where reliability, independence and long-term growth are critical.

(Em)Powering Corporate Office

Balfour Beatty is also extending this expertise beyond campus environments and into highly sensitive, fully operational corporate spaces. Over the past several years, Balfour Beatty has delivered critical upgrades for multiple Fortune 100 financial institutions and global banking companies.

Our work has included emergency power and generator installations, critical Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) system replacements, security infrastructure upgrades, sewage and stormwater system improvements in high-rise environments, main Intermediate Distribution Frame (IDF) and technology room renovations and large-scale fire protection replacements within active parking structures.

These projects, which transcend the scope of typical corporate interiors projects, encompass systems at the core of mission-critical operations, completed in buildings that can’t afford downtime. They require absolute operational precision, discretion, complete information security and zero interruption to day-to-day operations.

Balfour Beatty’s capabilities don’t stop at the campus edge, successfully extending into data-heavy, compliance-driven, financially sensitive environments where reliability and trust are non-negotiable.

From the Ground Down - and Up

This work isn’t flashy. It’s often muddy, always technical and nearly invisible once complete, but it builds trust. With that trust comes repeated success and clients for whom the Balfour Beatty name is synonymous with high-touch client service and first-rate excellence no matter the size, shape or location of the work at hand.