McCarthy Building Companies, Inc., a Texas builder for 36 years, was recently awarded a project to expand the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), one of the largest museums in the United States and also the oldest art museum in Texas. The project is located in the heart of the Museum District, a culture-filled location that attracts more than 8 million visitors each year.
The redevelopment of the 14-acre campus consists of a new exhibition building, an art school, a parking garage with two levels below grade, a rooftop garden, architecturally significant tunnel connectors, extensive site development and a central plant.
“The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston will be the first new construction of a fine arts museum in McCarthy history, and our team is excited to get started,” said McCarthy Houston Division President Jim Stevenson. “It is an honor to work on a project of such magnitude that means a great deal to the city of Houston. It is our goal to build a state-of-the-art addition to the 115-year-old museum that exemplifies the city’s dedication to the arts and provides a new space for residents, visitors and art enthusiasts to enjoy for many years to come.”
McCarthy will be partnering with program manager The Projects Group along with architects Steven Holl and Kendall Heaton to construct the new 164,000-square-foot exhibition building, which is set to house 20th- and 21st-century art, in addition to the new 80,000-square-foot facility for the Glassell School of Art. Both the exhibition hall and school will link to two existing gallery buildings and a sculpture garden, creating a 14-acre public campus between downtown and the Texas Medical Center. Construction for the project will begin in July 2015 and is scheduled for completion in 2019.
McCarthy has a long-standing history of building complex, architecturally significant projects in the entertainment and arts industry. In addition to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, McCarthy’s Texas portfolio of entertainment and institutional projects includes the award-winning AT&T Performing Arts Center Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre in Dallas, Dallas’ Klyde Warren Park located over Woodall Rogers Freeway and the Dallas City Performance Hall, among others.
About McCarthy: Celebrating 36 years of building in Texas, McCarthy is the nation’s ninth largest domestic general contractor (Engineering News-Record, May 2014) and a leading community builder. At McCarthy, we’re just getting started. For 150 years, McCarthy has been building communities across America, both by constructing essential projects communities rely on, as well as by helping those who need assistance. An employee-owned company, McCarthy performs general contractor, construction management and design/build services for the following project types: entertainment, education, parking structures, bridges and highways, healthcare, laboratory, biotechnology, retail, office buildings, water/wastewater, federal, port/marine, microelectronic, industrial facilities, tenant interiors and mixed-use project construction. In addition to Houston, McCarthy has offices in Dallas; Sacramento, San Francisco, San Diego and Newport Beach, Calif.; Phoenix; Las Vegas; St. Louis; New Mexico; Kansas City, Kansas; Collinsville, Illinois; and, Atlanta. More information about the company’s history is available online at www.mccarthy150.com or by following the company on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+.
 
About the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston: Tracing its origins to 1900, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, is one of the largest cultural institutions in the country. Its main campus is located in the heart of Houston’s Museum District and comprises the Audrey Jones Beck Building, the Caroline Wiess Law Building, the Glassell School of Art, and the Lillie and Hugh Roy Cullen Sculpture Garden. The Beck and Law buildings are connected underground by the Wilson Tunnel, which features James Turrell’s iconic installation The Light Inside. Additional resources include a repertory cinema, two significant libraries, and public archives. Nearby, two house museums—Bayou Bend Collection and Gardens, and Rienzi—present collections of American and European decorative arts. The encyclopedic collections of the MFAH are especially strong in Pre-Columbian and African gold; Renaissance and Baroque painting and sculpture; 19th- and 20th-century art; photography; and Latin American art. The MFAH is also home to the International Center for the Arts of the Americas (ICAA), a leading research institute for 20th-century Latin American and Latino art. www.mfah.org