Celebrating McCarthy's 2026 ENR Best Projects Winners

Each year, Engineering News-Record (ENR) honors the best construction projects from each of ENR’s 10 regional editions, judged using a variety of criteria including safety, innovation, quality and teamwork across 18 specialized categories. McCarthy is honored to share that many of our projects were selected as 2026 Regional Best Project and Award of Merit honorees. Congratulations to the teams who helped make these projects successful!

ENR West

UC Riverside North District Phase 2
Award of Merit, Higher Education/Research
Riverside, CA

This 424,000-square-foot building is the first completed public intersegmental housing project in the country, providing affordable student housing for both UCR and Riverside Community College District students. This innovative approach provides RCCD students with access to four-year campus amenities and support services — an immersion model designed to improve academic outcomes and retention. 

Hangar One
Best Project, Renovation/Restoration
Mountain View, CA

Originally built between 1931 and 1933 at Moffett Federal Airfield, Hangar One is one of the world's largest freestanding structures and a landmark of naval aviation and aerospace history. Working alongside our design-build partners HDR and KPFF, McCarthy rehabilitated the nearly century-old structure, completing full environmental abatement, structural upgrades, and modern building systems, along with a new exterior skin that replicates its historic silhouette while adding bird-safe features and improved ventilation.

Spur Phase I (IQHQ)
Award of Merit, Office/Retail/Mixed-Use
South San Francisco, CA

Spur Phase I is a 330,000-square-foot, eight-story Class A life science building at the gateway to South San Francisco's biotechnology district, adjacent to Highway 101 and the South San Francisco Caltrain Station. Built in partnership with architect Perkins&Will, this all-electric facility includes laboratory-ready tenant floors, four levels of below-grade parking and amenities such as a fitness center, café and conference spaces, plus a custom fin-and-glass façade with dynamic lighting that makes it a neighborhood landmark.

San Quentin Learning Center
Best Project, Government/Public Building
Award of Merit, Excellence in Safety
San Quentin, CA

As California’s first correctional project delivered through progressive design-build, this 81,000-square-foot, three-building campus marks a new model for rehabilitation-focused corrections design, bringing together classrooms, a library, media and technology labs, a café, meeting rooms and rooftop outdoor learning areas across landscaped courtyards with bay and hillside views. Delivered with DLR Group and Nordic design architect Schmidt Hammer Lassen, the project was completed in 18 months on time and on budget, logged more than 162,000 exposure hours with zero recordables and zero lost-time incidents and is targeting LEED Gold.

ENR Midwest

Tilden Solar
Best Project, Energy/Industrial
Tilden, IL

The Tilden Solar Facility represents significantly more than energy generation within a rural community. As part of Sol Systems’ nearly 1 Gigawatt (GW) portfolio of dual-use solar facilities, Tilden Solar represents the transformative potential of solar to a community that once found its identity within Southern Illinois’ Tilden Coal Mine. Now, the 150-megawatt (MW) ac/ 186 MWdc solar facility serves as the world’s largest solar facility constructed on reclaimed mining land.  

ENR Southwest & Mountain States

ASU Interdisciplinary Science and Technology Building 12 (ISTB12)
Best Project, Higher Education/Research
Mesa, AZ

The completion of the Interdisciplinary Science and Technology Building 12 (ISTB12) marks a significant expansion of Arizona State University’s (ASU) growing Polytechnic campus and delivers a new landmark facility for Knowledge Enterprise and the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering, supporting Arizona’s rapidly evolving manufacturing economy. Designed by SmithGroup and constructed over 22 months by McCarthy Building Companies, Inc. (McCarthy), the building reinforces the Polytechnic campus’s role as a home for manufacturing education and research within the Polytechnic Innovation Zone, one of nine ASU Innovation Zones designed to foster co-location between commercial companies, startups, and ASU’s research programs.  

Kurt R. Segler Water Reclamation Facility Phase 4 Improvements
Award of Merit, Water/Environment
Henderson, NV

This facility is the primary regional wastewater treatment plant, serving one of the fastest‑growing communities in the Las Vegas Valley. Originally constructed in 1994 and upgraded in 2008, the facility required a major expansion and modernization to reliably treat millions of gallons per day, protect sensitive desert waterways, and keep pace with sustained residential, commercial, and industrial growth. 

ENR Texas/Louisiana 

Stoneridge Solar & BESS 
Best Project, Excellence in Sustainability
Thorndale, TX

McCarthy served as the Engineering, Procurement, and Construction (EPC) contractor for RWE Americas’ (RWE) Stoneridge project, a 200-megawatt (MW) ac/270 MWdc solar facility with a 200 megawatt-hour (MWh) Battery Energy Storage System (BESS). At full capacity, Stoneridge produces enough energy to power the equivalent of 35,000 American homes annually and will help to deliver clean and reliable power to homes and industrial facilities across Texas.