Unnamed Greeley construction giant mulls expansion, relocation

GREELEY — A large, unnamed construction company is seeking millions of dollars in state tax incentives to expand its headquarters in Weld County.

The company, which evidence suggests is Hensel Phelps Construction Co., is also considering moving its headquarters out of state, according to a Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade memo. 

The incentives for the mystery firm, referred to in documents only as Project Treadstone, are scheduled to be reviewed on Thursday by the Colorado Economic Development Commission.

It is the commission’s practice not to identify companies OEDIT is recruiting until incentives are accepted, but information contained within a “Project Summary Report” distributed in advance of Thursday’s meeting appears to point toward Hensel Phelps. 

“Project Treadstone represents the company’s significant expansion and consideration of relocating their headquarters,” according to the OEDIT document. Specifically, the company expects to require 107,000 square feet of new headquarters space to accommodate its roughly 600 existing Colorado employees and 500 future employees. 

“Project Treadstone, should it occur in Colorado, expects to create 589 net new jobs at an average annual wage of $80,051, which is 134.5% of the average annual wage in Weld County,” according to OEDIT. 

Should the EDC approve the company’s request, Project Treadstone would be eligible for nearly $4.9 million in tax credits over an eight-year period. 

“This project would support the state’s economic goals by supporting the retention of and creation of net new, high-wage jobs in Colorado,” the OEDIT report said. The underlined emphasis on the word “retention” is included in the memo. 

In addition to Weld County, OEDIT said the unnamed company is considering Nashville, Austin and Phoenix for its headquarters project. 

Hensel Phelps officials did not respond to requests for comment.

Here’s why BizWest suspects Project Treadstone could be Hensel Phelps:

• Project Treadstone is described in the OEDIT report as a “general contractor” that has a headquarters “currently located in Greeley.” Hensel Phelps’ headquarters is at 420 Sixth Ave. in Greeley.
• “The company has 4,675 employees, 634 of whom are in Colorado,” according to OEDIT. Those figures generally reflect Hensel Phelps’ headcounts as reported in the media and by industry directories. No other general contractors in Greeley are nearly that large.
• OEDIT documents say that Project Treadstone’s capabilities include “a range of projects including but not limited to construction and renovation of commercial office, airport, distribution and industrial, correctional, institutional and residential facilities.” This language closely resembles online descriptions of Hensel Phelps, specifically a Hensel Phelps’ company profile on Forbes’ website. 
• Hensel Phelps has existing operations in all three of the cities it is considering for headquarters relocation. The firm’s Mid-South office is at 1600  Division St. in Nashville, the South-Central Regional Office is at 8326 Cross Park Drive in Austin, and its Southwest Regional Office is at 3125 E. Wood St. in Phoenix.

Hensel Phelps in January 2022 had submitted conceptual plans to build a 90,000-square-foot office building in Broomfield’s Baseline development, a project of Loveland-based McWhinney. The building would have housed the company’s Plains District operations, but no new submittals have been made, and the project appears to be dead.

Hensel Phelps was founded in Greeley in 1937 by Abel Hensel Phelps. The company has grown to become a global leader in the construction industry, specializing in aviation, commercial, education, government, health care, hospitality, infrastructure, science and water projects.

The company is renovating the 227,000-square-foot Great Hall in the Denver International Airport terminal, and in June was selected as general contractor for a new terminal building at Northern Colorado Regional Airport in Loveland.

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