From Southern California to the North Coast, three Sundt projects earned recognition as California’s best projects from Engineering News-Record (ENR), the construction industry’s premier publication. The projects: San Diego State University (SDSU) Imperial Valley Sciences and Engineering Laboratories, San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) Southeast Water Pollution Control Plant New Headworks Facility, and California State Polytechnic University (Cal Poly), Humboldt Hinarr Hu Moulik Student Housing, all demonstrate what Sundt and our skilled builders do best. Build the critical infrastructure that helps communities thrive.

 

 

Best Project, Higher Education/Research, Southern California: SDSU Imperial Valley Brawley STEM Building

In Brawley, California, under the shrinking Salton Sea sits one of the world’s largest lithium deposits. This discovery created a new nickname for the Imperial Valley, ‘Lithium Valley.’ Outside companies are investing in the area to extract the valuable alkali metal essential to electric vehicle batteries and other cutting-edge technologies. SDSU built these labs so the people who live in the Imperial Valley can get the science and engineering degrees needed for the new jobs coming to their county in geothermal, battery, and advanced manufacturing.

“After growing up in the Imperial Valley, I’m excited for this investment in the region’s talent, economy, and leadership in renewable energy innovation,” said Sundt Project Director Chris Sullivan.

The STEM building is Sundt’s fifth project for SDSU. The 66,000-square-foot facility went up on former alfalfa farmland outside Brawley, a site with no gravity sewer line, no storm drain, arsenic in the soil, and the potential for burrowing owls, a protected species. The team planned a humane relocation nearby if the owls turned up, replaced more than seven feet of soil under the building, ran a forced main sewer over two miles to reach Brawley’s system, and built vegetative swales that hold stormwater and feed the campus landscaping.

Read more about the SDSU Imperial Valley Brawley STEM Building.

 

 

Best Project, Water/Environment, Northern California: SFPUC Southeast Water Pollution Control Plant New Headworks Facility

Sundt with joint venture partner Walsh Construction and design engineer Carollo Engineers replaced two aging headworks operations built in the 1950s at the SFPUC Southeast Water Pollution Control Plant. This upgraded the first stage of the facility to better withstand harsh weather conditions and improve efficiency for treating up to 250 million gallons per day (MGD) of wastewater.

The upgraded headworks performs at 95% efficiency with a technology called Hydro HeadCell that pulls sand and debris out of the incoming wastewater through a stacked-tray grit removal system. The new machinery provides a 45% improvement over the equipment it replaced and helps prevent damage to the rest of the plant.

The joint venture team designed and built the facility to withstand a magnitude 7.8 earthquake and to stay in service through 36 inches of sea level rise. They also built a large-scale odor control system to clean the air for the Bayview neighborhood across the street.

This project is the first public infrastructure project in San Francisco to earn Envision Gold from the Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure, and it took a 2025 Project Excellence Award from the Water Environment Federation.

Learn more about the SFPUC Headworks Facility.

 

 

Award of Merit, Higher Education/Research, Northern California: Cal Poly Humboldt Hinarr Hu Moulik Student Housing

When Cal Poly Humboldt became the state’s third polytechnic university, it needed housing for the expected increase in students. Sundt and architect SCB built a 305,000-square-foot student housing complex with 964 beds in 243 apartments. This raised campus housing capacity by nearly 50%.

The university wanted a building that would last 50 years without becoming a maintenance burden, so Sundt recommended a concept with seven stories of concrete, to withstand the coastal climate better than wood or other materials. The remote location averaging over 100 days of rain a year made pouring concrete a delicate balance of preparation and changing weather reports. Sundt’s self-perform Concrete division set up at the university to ensure they could coordinate with the team and take advantage when the sun came out. It took almost 18,000 cubic yards of concrete.

“Sundt Construction has been an amazing partner throughout this whole process,” said Michael Fisher, Associate Vice President of Facilities Management at Cal Poly Humboldt.

The name, Hinarr Hu Moulik, comes from the Wiyot language spoken by the Wyot, a local Native American tribe, and means “our home.” The Cal Poly Humboldt campus in Arcata, California within the giant redwood forest and near the coast takes six hours of driving from Sacramento or San Francisco. The distance required many on the crew to make the small college town a temporary home, and the crew enjoyed becoming part of the community, organizing volunteer projects, soccer games, and fishing trips in the area.

See behind the build at the Cal Poly Humbolt Hinarr Hu Moulik student housing.

Three projects, across the diverse landscapes of the Golden State, delivered with excellence. See more of what we’ve built in California.