Controlling interest in Clark Construction sold to employee group

Clark Construction Group, one of the country’s largest building and civic construction firms, reportedly has been sold to over a dozen of its long-time owners and executives.

The Washington Post reports that the new owners of Bethesda, Md.-based Clark, who will now control 100% of the business, include its Chairman Dan T. Montgomery, its Director Peter C. Forster, and its President and CEO Robert D. Moser Jr. Clark Construction, which generates more than $4 billion in annual revenue, has 4,000 employees in 11 offices in the U.S.

Terms of this agreement were not disclosed. A call to Clark’s spokesperson, Susan Ross, was not returned by presstime.

What precipitated this transition of ownership was the death from congestive heart failure of the 87-year-old A. James Clark in March 2015. His Clark Enterprises owned a majority stake in Clark Construction. The sale of Clark Construction was announced on January 14, but apparently had been consummated several weeks earlier.

Clark Enterprises, a diversified private investment management firm, will now be separate from Clark Construction, which dates back to 1906, and whose iconic projects have included Verizon Center, Nationals Park, and FedEx Field in Washington D.C., along with the Ronald Reagan Building in Los Angeles and an addition to Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City.

According to the company’s history, the present-day Clark Construction Group evolved from its biggest subsidiary, The George Hyman Construction Company. A. James Clark, who had been an employee of Hyman since 1950, took over the business in the 1960s and established Clark Construction in 1982.

Clark Construction’s expertise extends to design-build, lean and pre-construction, public-private partnerships, and virtual design and construction. Its 23 market sectors include offices, aviation, sports and entertainment, mission critical, hospitality, government, education, and multifamily.

Among its recent projects is a joint venture with Horizon on the $100 million, 250,000-sf Joint Processing Center in Houston that is expected to establish a new level of correctional processing for that city. The building will include temporary holding cells, medical facilities and cells, arraignment courtrooms, short-term inmate housing, and operations for the County Sheriff and City Police departments.

Clark is building the 43-story, 872,000-sf Park Tower at Transbay in San Francisco, a JV of The John Buck Company, Golub and Company, and Metlife, and designed by Goettsch Partners. And Clark is engaged with architect Fentress Architects in a $500 million renovation of 500,000 sf of exhibit and interior spaces at the Miami Convention Center, a project that includes an addition of a 60,000-sf ballroom with meeting and pre-function space.