MEET OUR EVENT SPONSORS

We needed all our coffee to help us round up the team from KWA Construction. Here's Holly Webster, Justin Bailey, Keller Webster,Katie Hicks, Brian Webster, and Candice Meredith. Keller tells us the multifamily GC focuses solely on the Texas market; projects include Pinnacle Park and Taylor?s Farm, which is about 75% complete  and slated to open in the fall. The GC does about $100M a year in volume on a variety of projects including private financed work, HUD221(d)4 projects, government projects, and housing authority work, Keller tells us.

Lighting up the room were the smiles of StarTex Power?s Luis Silva and Karen Black. The firm sells electricity in deregulated markets in Texas and recently merged with Constellation with plans to eventually expand across the US, Karen tells us. StarTex targets multifamily projects and can provide a fixed rate during construction and, upon completion, transfer the service to the property management company. StarTex works with partners Arruth, Gamma Construction, Westchase, ABPM and Servant Energy, among others. And a little trivia for the sports fans: StarTex bought the 10-year naming rights for the new $30M minor league baseball stadium in Sugar Land, set to open in 2012.

We snapped BGO Architects? Walter Kilroy, Steve Williams of event sponsor ICI Construction and Prescott Realty Group's Taylor Stone. ICI's resume includes work on Montgomery Plaza in Fort Worth, the Grand Texan Apartments in McKinney, and DeSoto Town Center. The firm was originally founded in Houston in 1981 and expanded into North Texas with a Dallas division in 1989. The company has grown to completing $175M in new construction during the last fiscal year and more than $1.2B within the last decade. Not part of their accomplishments: the tower of limes.

Holmes Firm PC?s Ron Holmes (with colleague Brian Fisher) tells us that in addition to the multifamily acquisitions and developments the firm currently represents, he successfully shepherded a bill through the last legislative session that created a broadly powered utility district for the 26,000-acre Lajitas Golf Resort and Spa between Big Bend National Park and Big Bend Ranch State Park. (A couple more Big Bends and we'll have a Paul Bunyon-sized racetrack.) In two weeks, Ron and his wife, Jan, are hosting their son along with his cast and crew to film a portion of his new movie around Junction (Texas, not Petticoat). His son is about to receive his master?s from the School of Visual Arts in NYC and this is his breakout movie. (We're ready for our closeup, Mr. Holmes.)