What do you do when contracting a one-of-a-kind mega project, combining nearly every aspect of commercial construction, including multifamily residential, Class A office, retail, hospitality and 46 of Dallas’ most luxurious high-rise condominiums in a million-square-foot development?

If you’re Trammel Crow Company (TCC), you combine your two best candidates, Balfour Beatty and ANDRES Construction Services, into an equally one-of-a-kind joint venture with the right stuff to see it through.

On the Knox Street Development, a landmark and neighborhood-transforming project in Dallas, Texas, the Balfour Beatty and ANDRES joint venture team has blended seamlessly into a unified force for excellence and expertise. Now well underway, the project showcases not only each contractor’s proficiency but also our shared people-first values, Balfour Beatty’s Zero Harm safety leadership and the advantages of allying large and small contractors.

Assembling the Team 

Forming a joint venture with ANDRES was not Balfour Beatty’s original plan when pursuing the Knox Street Development. In fact, ANDRES initially interviewed as a joint venture partner with another contractor and has even been a competitor in past pursuits.

What the client saw, however, was a unique opportunity to leverage the advantages of each contractor in our first-ever joint venture.

“ANDRES has a lot of experience with successful multifamily residential projects, as well as a history of successful delivery for Trammel Crow,” says Roy Evans, Balfour Beatty operations director. “On the other hand, Balfour Beatty is known as a skyline-changing contractor with successful megaprojects like the Omni Dallas, Parkland Hospital and several of TCC’s own projects like Park District. TCC trusts our experience with large, complex projects and knows we bring strong procurement power and an unparalleled people-first culture to the table.”

Project scale wasn’t the only factor in Balfour Beatty’s favor, either. In addition to being a simply large overall scope, the Knox Street Development included other aspects uniquely suited to our capabilities and experience including a significant below-grade parking garage component. And Balfour Beatty’s sophisticated preconstruction process inspired the client’s confidence in our ability to keep the project within budget and successfully navigate supply chain challenges.

Now partnered in an unanticipated joint venture, Balfour Beatty’s and ANDRES’s staff set about going from “teams” to “team.” The process could have been compromised by pitfalls at every step, but Balfour Beatty entered teambuilding conversations just as collaboratively as we approach our client relationships. ANDRES did the same, and the results are only stronger for it.

“Even on a non-joint-venture project, creating an effective and expert team is a process of matching project roles with the right people and the right skillsets. This project was no different, but with more experts to choose from,” Roy adds. “Part of that, and a key part of creating our unified on-site culture, was intentionally mixing our teams across each project sub-team and preventing any Balfour Beatty or ANDRES siloes that could become competitive.”

Also critical throughout this process were the significant insights of some of Balfour Beatty’s strongest Texas experts. Teammates like Roy, Project Managers Ricky Boler and Mathew McManigle, Senior Safety, Health and Environment Manager Bob Mrdjenovich and recently retired General Superintendent Sam Moses are known both within and without our Texas operations for their skills and cultural leadership, and their input proved invaluable during team assembly. In a collaborative team effort, Balfour Beatty and ANDRES leaders assessed both teams’ personnel, identified teammates whose skills and experience matched key aspects of the project or complimented each other and created a plan for a strong and thoroughly mixed team.

It Takes a Village 

From the beginning, ANDRES has been a true construction ally in lockstep with Balfour Beatty’s commitment to client collaboration and consistent quality, and ANDRES leaders can attest to the partnership’s strength.

“I think we were all initially surprised at how similar our company cultures are, putting people first, insisting on safe practices and placing high expectations on our teams for quality and client service,” says ANDRES Senior Project Manager Brian Wileman. “The experience ever since couldn’t have been better. We’re aligned as one team, we operate as one team and we’re providing safe and exceptional service as one team.”

ANDRES’s expertise as a premier multifamily residential builder has proved essential for delivering one of the development’s main buildings, a 27-story, 173-unit multifamily tower with expansive amenities, ultra-luxury interiors and ground floor retail space.

 Partnering with ANDRES has also expanded the joint venture’s roster of potential trade partners and material suppliers, combining Balfour Beatty’s leverage as a national contractor and our networks built over decades with ANDRES’s knowledge of smaller local partners. By their powers combined, the team is more than up to the task of the project’s world-class luxury finishes, both within the multifamily tower and in its partner tower, the 140-room Knox Hotel and 48 ultra-luxury condominiums.

And the ANDRES team will be the first to say that the experience has been incredibly rewarding both personally and professionally, and not just a boon to the team’s overall strength on this project.

“We bring some of our trade partner base to the table, but we’re also widening our subcontractor base in the process, not to mention gaining invaluable experience on a project of this scale, refining our operations and safety processes,” Brian adds. “Balfour Beatty leaders like Sam and Senior Superintendent Mason Hill bring so much experience to the table, and it’s been impressive to watch and learn from them in action.”

Culture, Not Just Experience

It might have been far simpler to divvy up the Knox Street Development into discrete packages – Balfour Beatty building the hotel and condominiums, ANDRES building the multifamily finish-out work, all a joint venture in name only. But our culture as Relentless Allies – and one we’re proud to share with ANDRES on this project – requires more.

Just as we strive to become one collaborative team with our project stakeholders on every venture, Balfour Beatty’s Knox Street Development team and our ANDRES partners have taken every opportunity to promote unity. Even off the jobsite, ANDRES personnel regularly attend Balfour Beatty spirit events like our BBQ cookoff, charity golf tournaments and more, and vice versa.

Together, joined by a shared commitment to excellence and a culture that makes it possible, Balfour Beatty and ANDRES are well on track to deliver the Knox Street Development by late 2026. Both stronger for the shared experience and both better equipped to serve our Texas clients on projects large and small.