Skanska


Specialty: Healthcare, biotech, cultural/civic
Management: Bob Babitsky, area general manager
Year founded: 1946
Headquarters: Parsippany, N.J.; local office in Seattle
2004 revenues: $283 million
Projected 2005 revenues: $325 million-$350 million
Current significant projects: Lincoln Square in Bellevue, Stadium High School in Tacoma, King County Courthouse seismic upgrades

Photo courtesy Skytech Aerial Photo
Skanska is making improvements to Stadium High School in Tacoma.

Tony Stewart, vice president of Skanska’s Seattle office, said he is expecting revenues this year on the order of the “high water mark” of about four or five years ago “when the office market was really hot.”

Last year, the Seattle office earned $283 million in revenues, but this year is projecting at least $325 million.

“We have been blessed with a good backlog of contracted work,” Stewart said, and Skanska’s been getting a lot of work lately in the healthcare, higher education and biotech sectors.

Making buildings for people in the biotech, or life sciences, sector is one of Skanska’s areas of expertise. About 40 of its 185 salaried staff do work in the laboratory specialty market.

Lab researchers require sensitive working environments, with tight electrical and mechanical controls. “These are guys in moon suits with air hoses and stuff,” Stewart said.

A big project under construction this year is a laboratory at Rocky Mountain Laboratories in Hamilton, Mont., for the National Institutes of Health. The $60 million building will have a containment lab and special piping to keep contents pure. Some labs will be built to a high-level safety standard called BSL (biosafety level) four.

Other big projects include the 42-story Lincoln Square in Bellevue, Stadium High School in Tacoma and Alley24, a South Lake Union development that will house Skanska’s offices next year.

After having spent 25 years in an old building elsewhere in Seattle, Stewart said the company wanted to move to a more urban, growing neighborhood.



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