F.A. Wilhelm Construction

F.A. Wilhelm Construction is an Indianapolis contractor founded in 1923 by Francis A. Wilhelm, who started out laying brick foundations on the city’s southeast side. The company is still headquartered on Prospect Street there, now with offices in South Bend and North Carolina, and calls itself the largest contractor in Indiana. It crossed $1 billion in annual revenue in 2021. Wilhelm works as construction manager, design-builder and general contractor and self-performs concrete and other trades, with affiliates covering electrical, fire protection, prefabrication and mechanical piping. Its Indianapolis credits include Circle Centre Mall, the Indiana Convention Center and the IU Health academic health center. Wilhelm is the concrete contractor on the 38-story, 803-room Signia by Hilton Indianapolis, which takes guests starting Dec. 9, 2026.

The affiliate structure is what makes Wilhelm unusual, and the individual companies are worth naming. Freitag-Weinhardt, founded in 1883 and therefore older than Wilhelm itself, handles mechanical work including plumbing, HVAC and process piping. Industrial Electric covers electrical and systems work for industrial and advanced-technology projects. Poynter Sheet Metal, based in Greenwood, is described as the largest full-service sheet metal source in Indiana. RSQ Fire Protection handles automatic sprinkler design, engineering and installation. A client buying design-build from Wilhelm is, in effect, buying four specialist contractors that already work together.

Fabrication is done in-house as well, in an AISC certified facility that produces formwork, piping, electrical systems and metal. Prefabrication appears on the service list as its own line, alongside preconstruction, construction management, general contracting, design-build, trade contracting, integrated project delivery and emergency services.

The project history runs through most of Indianapolis’s large concrete work. Wilhelm built the Hoosier Dome, its largest concrete project at the time, and was concrete contractor on the 22,000-seat KFC Yum! Center. In 2009 the company moved into water and wastewater, taking two heavy civil projects for City of Lafayette Public Works, which opened a market it had not previously worked in.

Geography has widened too. An office and warehouse in Research Triangle Park, Durham, North Carolina now supports work in that state.

Family involvement continues into the fourth generation: Pat Kenney, the founder’s great-grandson, has been around the business since his high school and college summers.