Milhouse Engineering & Construction

Milhouse Engineering & Construction is a Chicago-headquartered engineering firm founded in 2001 by Wilbur Milhouse III, working in transportation, water, power and utilities, aviation, structural engineering and construction management. Its long-running public clients include the Illinois Department of Transportation and the Chicago Department of Aviation. Milhouse is part of the Chicago Community Builders Collective, the eight-firm joint venture led by Gilbane that holds the general contract on Bally’s $1.7 billion casino resort at the Freedom Center site, where it provides engineering services. The firm has grown from a small Chicago practice into a multi-office operation while keeping a majority-owned structure, and it runs an in-house professional development program that has become part of its recruiting pitch.

Certification and prequalification are the practical gate on public work, and this is where Milhouse has invested. The firm holds MBE certification in twelve states: California, Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and Wisconsin.

Illinois Department of Transportation prequalifications cover freeways, roads and streets, movable and railroad structures, pumping station special plans, traffic studies, hydraulic reports and airport design. The firm is separately prequalified with the Illinois Capital Development Board for architecture, civil, electrical, mechanical, structural and asbestos services, with Kane County, and with the Georgia DOT for transportation planning, NEPA documentation, archaeology, mass transit and aviation, and several highway design categories. That list is the reason a firm like this can bid a broad slate of agency work without teaming for every discipline.

Self-reported scale as of the firm’s about page: 23 years in business, more than 3,000 projects, over 450 clients, more than 500 team members, and $1 million invested in community organisations.

The business has also widened past engineering. Milhouse now describes itself as a family of companies covering engineering, construction, program management, vegetation management and real estate development. Vegetation management, or forestry, sitting alongside structural engineering is an unusual combination and reflects the firm’s utility client base.

Headquarters is at 333 South Wabash Avenue, Suite 2901, in the Loop, with branch offices in Lombard, Washington DC, Irving, Atlanta, New York, Newark, St. Louis and Charlotte. Industry sectors served run aviation, construction, facilities, forestry, gas, power, telecommunications, transportation and water resources.

The stated core values are Active Diversity, Constant Quality, Fierce Integrity and Intentional Safety, with safety framed as an expectation rather than a compliance checklist.